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ANTHROPOLOGY 

AN    INTRODUCTION    TO    THE   STUDY    OF 
MAN    AND    CIVILIZATION 


BY 

EDWARD    B.' TYLOR,    D.  CL,   F.  R.  S. 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 
D.    APPLETON   AND   COMPANY 

1898 


Authorized  Edition. 


1365^ 


a  "5 


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Cf    r, 


PREFACE. 

In  times  when  subjects  of  education  have  multiplied,  it 
may  seem  at  first  sight  a  hardship  to  lay  on  the  already 
heavily- pressed  student  a  new  science.  But  it  will  be  found 
that  the  real  effect  of  Anthropology  is  rather  to  lighten 
than  increase  the  strain  of  learning.  In  the  mountains  we 
see  the  bearers  of  heavy  burdens  contentedly  shoulder  a 
carrying-frame  besides,  because  they  find  its  weight  more 
than  compensated  by  the  convenience  of  holding  together 
and  balancing  their  load.  So  it  is  with  the  science  of 
Man  and  Civilization,  which  connects  into  a  more  manage- 
able whole  the  scattered  subjects  of  an  ordinary  education. 
Much  of  the  difficulty  of  learning  and  teachmg  lies  in  the 
scholar's  not  seeing  clearly  what  each  science  or  art  is  for, 
what  its  place  is  among  the  purposes  of  life.  If  he  knows 
something  of  its  early  history,  and  how  it  arose  from  the 
simpler  wants  and  circumstances  of  mankind,  he  finds  him- 
self better  able  to  lay  hold  of  it  than  when,  as  too  often 
happens,  he  is  called  on  to  take  up  an  abstruse  subject  not 
at  the  beginning  but  in  the  middb.  When  he  has  learnt 
something  of  man's  rudest  means  of  conversing  by  gestures 
and  cries,  and  thence  has  been  led  to  see  how  the  higher 


vi  PREFACE. 

devices  of  articulate  speech  are  improvements  on  such 
lower  methods,  he  makes  a  fairer  start  in  the  science  of 
language  than  if  he  had  fallen  unprepared  among  the 
subtleties  of  grammar,  which  unexplained  look  like 
arbitrary  rules  framed  to  perplex  rather  than  to  inform. 
The  dislike  of  so  many  beginners  to  geometry  as  ex 
pounded  by  Euklid,  the  fact  that  not  one  out  of  three 
ever  really  understands  what  he  is  doing,  is  of  all  things 
due  to  the  scholar  not  being  shown  first  the  practical 
common-sense  starting-point,  where  the  old  carpenters 
and  builders  began  to  make  out  the  relations  of  dis- 
tances and  spaces  in  their  work.  So  the  law- student 
plunges  at  once  into  the  intricacies  of  legal  systems 
which  have  grown  up  through  the  struggles,  the  reforms, 
and  even  the  blunders  of  thousands  of  years  ,  yet  he 
might  have  made  his  way  clearer  by  seeing  how  laws 
begin  in  rheir  simplest  foims,  framed  to  meet  the  needs 
of  savage  and  barbaric  tribes.  It  is  needless  to  make 
a  list  of  all  the  branches  of  education  in  knowledge  and 
art ;  there  is  not  one  which  may  not  be  the  easier  and 
better  learnt  for  knowing  its  history  and  place  in  the 
general  science  of  Man. 

With  this  aim  in  view,  the  present  volume  is  an  in- 
troduction to  Anthropology,  rather  than  a  summary  of 
all  it  teaches.  It  does  not  deal  with  strictly  technical 
matter,  out  of  the  reach  of  readers  who  have  received, 
or  are  receiving,  the  ordinary  higher  English  education. 
Thus,  except  to  students  trained  in  anatomy,  the  minute 
modern  researches  as  to  distinction  of  races  by  skull 
measurements  and  the  like  would  be  useless.      Much  care 


PREFACE.  vii 

has  been  taken  to  make  the  chapters  on  the  various 
branches  of  the  science  sound  as  far  as  they  go,  but 
the  more  advanced  work  must  be  left  to  special  students. 
While  the  various  departments  of  the  science  of  Man 
are  extremely  multifarious,  ranging  from  body  to  mind, 
from  language  to  music,  from  fire-making  to  morals,  they 
are  all  matters  to  whose  nature  and  history  every  well- 
informed  person  ought  to  give  some  thought.  It  is  much, 
however,  for  any  single  writer  to  venture  to  deal  even  in 
the  most  elementary  way  with  so  immense  a  variety  of 
subjects.  In  such  a  task  I  have  the  right  to  ask  that 
errors  and  imperfections  should  be  lightly  judged.  I 
could  not  have  attempted  it  at  all  but  for  the  help  of 
friends  eminent  in  various  branches  of  the  science,  whom 
I  have  been  able  to  consult  on  doubtful  and  difficult 
points.  IMy  acknowledgments  are  especially  due  to  Pro- 
fessor Huxley  and  Dr.  E.  A.  Freeman,  Sir  Henry  Maine, 
Dr.  Birch,  Mr.  Franks,  Professor  Flower,  Major-General 
Pitt-Rivers,  Professor  Sayce,  Dr.  Beddoe,  Dr.  D.  H. 
Tuke,  Professor  W.  K.  Douglas,  ]\Ir.  Russell  Martineau, 
Mr.  R.  Garnett,  Mr.  Henry  Sweet,  Mr.  Rudler,  and 
many  other  friends  whom  1  can  only  thank  unnamed. 
The  illustrations  of  races  are  engraved  from  photographic 
portraits,  many  of  them  taken  by  the  permission  of 
Messrs.  Dammann  of  Huddersfield  from  their  valuable 
Albums  of  Ethnological  Photographs. 

E.  B.  T. 

February,  iSSi, 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGE 

Man,  Ancient  and  Modern i 

Antiquity  of  Man,  i — Time  required  for  Development  of  Races,  i — of 
Languages,  7 — of  Civilization,  13 — Traces  of  Man  in  the  Stone 
Age,  25 — Later  Period,  26 — Earlier  Quaternary  or  Drift-Period,  29. 


CHAPTER  n. 

Man  and  other  Animals 35 

Vertebrate  Animals,  35 — Succession  and  Descent  of  Species,  37 — 
Apes  and  Man,  comparison  of  Structure,  38 — Hands  and  Feet,  42 
—  Hair,  44 — Features,  44— Brain,  45 — Mind  in  Lower  Animals  and 
Man,  47. 

•   CHAPTER  in. 

Races  of  Mankind 56 

Differences  of  Race,  56 — Stature  and  Proportions,  56 — Skull,  60 — 
Features,  62 — Colour,  66 — Hair,  71 — Constitution,  73 — Tempera, 
ment,  74 — Types  of  Races,  75 — Permanence,  80 — Mixture,  80 — 
Variation,  84 — Races  of  Mankind  classified,  87. 


Language 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

PAGE 
114 

Sign-making,  1 14  — Gesture-language,  114 — Sound-gestures,  120 — 
Natural  Language,  122 — Utterances  of  Animals,  122 — Emotional 
and  Imitative  Sounds  in  Language,  124 — Change  of  Sound  and 
Sense,  127 — Other  expression  of  Sense  by  Sound,  128 — Children's 
Words,  128 — Articulate  Language,  its  relation  to  Natural  Lan- 
guage, 129 — Origin  of  Language,  130. 


CHAPTER  V. 

Language  {continued) 132 

Articulate  Speech,  132— Growth  of  Meanings,  133— Abstract  Words, 
135 — Real  and  Grammatical  Words,  136 — Parts  of  Speech,  138 — 
Sentences,  139 — Analytic  Language,  139 — Word  Combination,  140 
— Synthetic  Language,  141 — Affixes,  142 — Sound-change,  143 — 
Roots,  144 — Syntax,  146 — Government  and  Concord,  147 — Gender, 
149 — Development  of  Language,  150. 


CHAPTER  VL 

Language  and  Race 152 

Adoption  and  loss  of  Language,  152  — Ancestral  Language,  153  — 
Families  of  Language,  155 — Aryan,  156 — Semitic,  159 — Egyptian, 
Berber,  &c.,  160 — Tatar  or  Turanian,  161 — South-East  Asian,  162 
— Malayo  Polynesian,  163 — Dravidian,  164 — African,  Bantu,  Hot- 
tentot, 164 — American,  165 — Early  Languages  and  Races,  165. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Writing 167 

Picture-writing,  168 — Sound-pictures,  169 — Chinese  Writing,  170 — 
Cuneiform  Writing,  172 — Egyptian  Writing,  173 — Alphabetic 
Writing,  175— Spelling,  17S — Printing,  180. 


CONTENTS.  xi 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

PAGE 

Arts  of  Life 182 

Development  of  Instruments,  183 -Club,  Hammer,  184— Stone-flake, 
185— Hatchet,  188— Sabre,  Knife,  189— Spear,  Dagger,  Sword,  190 
—Carpenter's  Tools,  192— Missiles,  Javelin,  193— Sling,  Spear- 
thrower,  194 — Bow  and  Arrow,  195 — Blow  tube,  Gun,  196 — 
Mechanical  Power,  197— Wheel-Carriage,  198— Hand-mill,  200— 
Drill,  Lathe,  202 — Screw,  203 — Water-mill,  Wi.id-mill,  204. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Arts  of  Life  {continued) 206 

Quest  of  wild  food,  206 — Hunting,  207 — Trapping,  211 — F.shing,  212 
— Agriculture,  214 — Implements,  216 — Fields,  2x8 — Cattle,  pastur- 
age, 219 — War,  221 — Weapons,  221 — Armour,  222 — Warfare  of 
lower  tribes,  223 — of  higher  nations,  225. 

CHAPTER  X. 

Arts  of  Life  {continued) 229 

Dwellings  :— Caves,  229 — Huts,  230 — Tents,  231— Houses,  231 — Stoue 
and  Brick  Building,  232— Arch,  235 — Development  of  Archi- 
tecture, 235 — Dress: — Painting  skin,  236 — Tattooing,  237 — De- 
formation of  Skull,  &c.,  240— Ornaments,  241 — Clothing  of  Bark, 
Skin,  &c.,  244— Mats,  246— Spinning,  Weaving,  246— Sewing^ 
249 — Garments,  249 — Navigation  : — Floats,  252 — Boats,  253 — 
Rafts,  255 — Outriggers,  255 — Paddles  and  Oars,  256 — Sails,  256  — 
Galleys  and  Ships,  257. 

CHAPTER  XL 

Arts  of  Life  {concluded) 260 

Fire,  260 — Cookery,  264 — Bread,  &c.,  266 — Liquors,  268 — Fuel,  270 
— Lighting,  272 — Vessels,  274 — Pottery,  274 — Glass,  276 — Metals, 
277 — Bronze  and  Iron  Age«,  278 — Barter,  281 — Money,  282 — 
Commerce,  285. 


xii  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  XII. 

PAGE 

Arts  of  Pleasure 287 

Poetry,  287 — Verse  and  Metre,  288 — Alliteration  and  Rhyme,  2S9 — 
Poetic  Metaphor,  289 — Speech,  Melody,  Harmony,  290 — Musical 
Instruments,  293 — Dancing,  296 — Drama,  298 — Sculpture  and 
Painting,  300 — Ancient  and  Modern  Art,  301 — Games,  305. 

CHAPTER    XIII. 
Science 309 

Science,  309 — Counting  and  Arithmetic,  310 — Measuring  and  Weigh- 
ing, 316 — Geometry,  318 — Algebra,  322 — Physics,  323 — Chemistry, 
328— Biology,  329 — Astronomy,  332 — Geography  and  Geobgy,  335 
— Methods  of  Reasoning,  336 — Magic,  338. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
The  Spirit-World 342 

Religion  of  Lower  Races,  342 — Souls,  343 — Burial,  347 — Future  Life, 
349 — Transmigration,  350 — Divine  Ancestors,  351 — Demons,  352  — 
Nature  Spirits,  357 — Gods,  358 — Worship,  364 — Moral  Influeiic, 
368. 

CHAPTER  XV. 
History  and  Mythology 373 

Tradition,  373— Poetry,  375 — Fact  in  Fiction,  377 — Earliest  Poems 
and  Writmgs,  381 — Ancient  Chronicle  and  History,  383 — Myths, 
387  — Interpretation  of  Myths,  396 — Diffusion  of  Myths,  397. 

CHAPTER  XVL 
Society 401 

Social  Stages,  40I  —  Family,  402 — Morals  of  Lower  Races,  405  — 
Public  Opinion  and  Custom,  408 — Moral  Progress,  410 — Ven- 
geance and  Justice,  414 — War,  418— Property,  419 — Legal  Cere- 
monies, 423— Family  Power  and  Responi-ibility,  426 — Patriarchal 
and  Military  Chiefs,  428— Nations,  432 — Social  Ranks,  434 — 
Government,  436. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


FIG.  PAGE 

1.  Later  Stone  Age  (neolithic)  implements 27 

2.  Earlier  Stone  Age  (palseolithic)  flint  picks  or  Imtchets  ...  29 

3.  Sketch  of  mammoth  from  cave  of  La  Madeleiue  (Lartet  and 

Christy) 31 

4.  Sketch  of  man  and  hor.se  from  cave  (Lartet  and  Christy)  .      .  3^ 

5.  Skeletons  of  apes  and  man  (after  Huxley) 39 

6.  Hand  and  foot  of  chimpanzee  and  of  man 42 

7.  Brain  of  chimpanzee  and  of  man 46 

8.  Patagonian  and  Bushman 5^ 

g.   Top  view  of  skulls 61 

10.  Side  view  of  skulls 62 

11.  a,   Swaheli ;  b,  Persian 63 

12.  Female  portraits 64 

13.  African  negro 65 

14.  Section  of  negro  skin,  mucli  magnified  (after  KoUilcer)       .     .  66 

15.  Sections  of  hair,  highly  magnified  (after  Pruner) 73 

16.  Race  or  Population  arranged  by  Stature  (Galton's  method)     .  76 

17.  Race  or  Population  arranged  by  Stature  (Quetelet's  method) .  77 

18.  Caribs 7^ 

19.  {a)  Head  of  Kame:es  II.,  Ancient  E^ypt.      {b)  Sheikh's  son. 

Modern  Egypt  (after  Ha-tmann) 79 

20.  Malay  Mother  and  Half-caste  DauL^liters 81 

21.  Cafusa  Woman 82 


xiv  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FIG.  PAGE 

22.  Cairene 84 

23.  Aiidaman  Islanders 88 

24.  Aheta  (Negrito),  Philippine  Islands go 

25.  Melanesians     .     - 91 

26.  South  Australian  (man) 92 

27.  South  Au  tralian  (woman) 92 

28.  Australian  (Queensland)  women 93 

29.  Dravidian  hill-man  (after  Fryer) 94 

30.  Kalmuk  (after  GoldsmiJ) 95 

31.  Guldi  (Amur) 96 

32.  Siamese  actress  s 97 

33.  Cochin-Chinese 98 

34.  Coreans 99 

35.  Finn  (man) loo 

36.  Finn  (\voman) 100 

37.  Malays loi 

38.  Malays loi 

39.  Dayaks 103 

40.  Kingsmill  Islander 104 

41.  Colorado  Indian  (North  America) 106 

42.  Colorado  Indian  (North  America) 107 

43.  Cauixana  Indians  (South  America) 108 

44.  Georgians IIO 

45.  Swedes Ill 

46.  Gypsy 112 

47.  Picture-writing,  rock  near  Lake  Supe  ior  (after  Schoolcraft)  .  168 

48.  Pater  noster  in  Mexican  picture-writing  (after  Aubin)    .      .      .  169 

49.  Chinese    ancient    pictures    and    later    cursive    forms    (after 

Endlicher) 170 

50.  Chinese  compound  cliaracters,  pictures  and  tounds  .      .      .      .  171 

51.  Egyptian  hieroglyphic  and  hieratic  characters  compared  wiih 

letters  of  Phoenician  and  later  alphabets  (after  De  Rouge)  .  176 

52.  Gunflint-maker's  core  and  flakes  (after  Evans) 1S5 

53.  Stone  Flakes 186 

54.  Later  Stone  Age  (neolithic)  iaiplements 187 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xv 

FIG.  PAGE 

55.  Earlier  Stone  Age  (palseolithic)  flint  picks  or  hatchets  .     .     .  1S7 

56.  Stone  Axes,  &c i83 

57.  a,    Egyptian    battle-axe;    b,   Egyptian  falchion;    c,   Asiatic 

sabre ;    d,  European   sheath-knife ;    e,  Roman  culter  ;  f, 

Hindu  bill-hook 189 

58.  a,  Stone  spear-head  (Admiralty  Is.);  l>,  stone  spear-head  or 

dagger-blade  (England)  ;  c,  bronze  spear-head  (Denmark); 

(/,  bronze  dagger  ;  i",  bronze  leaf -shaped  sword    .     .     .     .  191 

59.  Australian    spear    thrown  with   spear- thrower  (after   Brough 

Smyth) 194 

60.  Bows 196 

61.  Ancient  bullock-waggon,  from  the  Antonine  Column  .      .      .  199 

62.  Corn-crusher,  Anglesey  (after  W.  O.  Stanley) 201 

63.  Hebrides  women  grinding  with  the  quern  or  hand-mill  (after 

Pennanr) 202 

64.  a,  Australian  di^'ging-stick ;  l>,  Swedish  wooden  hack  .      .      .  216 

65.  Ancient  Egyptian  hoe  and  plough 217 

66.  Natives  of  Lepers'  Island  (New  Hebrides) 239 

67.  Hand  of  Chinese  ascetic 241 

68.  Botocudo  woman  with  lip-  and  ear-ornaments 242 

69.  a,   Australian   winder   for   hand-twisted    cord ;    l>,    Egyptian 

woman  spinning  with  the  spindle 247 

70.  Girl  weaving.     From  an  Aztec  picture 248 

71.  Ancient  Nile-boat,  from  wall-painting,  Thebes 258 

72.  Bushman  drilling  fire  (after  Chapman) 262 

73.  Ancient  Egyptian  Potter's  Wheel  (Beni  Hassan)      ....  275 

74.  Ancient  Egyptian  Glass-blowing  (Beni  Hassan)        ....  277 

75.  Development  of  the  Harp .  255 

76.  Ancient  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  numeration 313 

77.  Mode  of  calculation  by  counters  and  by  figures  on  Abacus     .  315 

78.  Rudimentary  practical  Geometry 318 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 

CHAPTER  I. 

MAN,    ANCIENT   AND    MODERN. 

Antiquity  of  Man,  i — Time  required  for  Development  of  Races,  I — of 
Languages,  7 — of  Civilization,  13 — Traces  of  Man  in  tlie  Stone 
Age,  25 — Later  Period,  26 — Earlier  Quaternary  or  Drift-Period,  29. 

The  student  who  seeks  to  understand  how  mankind  came 
to  be  as  they  are,  and  to  live  as  they  do,  ought  first  to 
know  clearly  whether  men  are  new-comers  on  the  earth,  or 
old  inhabitants.  Did  they  appear  with  their  various  races 
and  ways  of  life  ready-made,  or  were  these  shaped  by  the 
long,  slow  growth  of  ages?  In  order  to  answer  this  ques- 
tion, our  first  business  will  be  to  take  a  rapid  survey  of  the 
varieties  of  men,  their  languages,  their  civilization,  and  their 
ancient  relics,  to  see  what  proofs  may  thus  be  had  of  man's 
age  in  the  world.  The  outline  sketch  thus  drawn  will  also 
be  useful  as  an  introduction  to  the  fuller  examination  of 
man  and  his  ways  of  life  in  the  chapters  which  follow. 

First,   as  to  the  varieties  of  mankind.     Let  us  suppose 
ourselves   standing  at  the   docks  in  Liverpool  or  London, 
looking  at  groups    of  men  of   races   most    different  from 
2 


2  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

our  own.  There  is  the  familiar  figure  of  the  African 
negro,  with  skin  so  dark-brown  as  to  l^e  popularly  called 
black,  and  black  hair  so  naturally  frizzed  as  to  be  called 
woolly.  Nor  are  these  the  only  points  in  which  he  is 
unlike  us.  Indeed,  the  white  men  who  blacken  their 
faces  and  friz  their  hair  to  look  like  negros  make  a  very  poor 
imitation,  for  the  negro  features  are  quite  distinct ;  we  well 
know  the  flat  nose,  wide  nostrils,  thick  protruding  lips,  and, 
when  the  face  is  seen  in  profile,  the  remarkable  projecting 
jaws.  A  hatter  would  at  once  notice  that  the  negro's  head 
is  narrower  in  proportion  than  the  usual  oval  of  the  hats 
made  for  Englishmen.  It  would  be  possible  to  tell  a  negro 
from  a  white  man  even  in  the  dark  by  the  peculiar  satiny 
feel  of  his  skin,  and  the  yet  more  peculiar  smell  which  no 
one  who  has  noticed  it  is  ever  likely  to  mistake.  In  the 
same  docks,  among  the  crews  of  Eastern  steamers,  we 
observe  other  well-marked  types  of  man.  The  Coolie 
of  South  India  (who  is  not  of  Hindu  race,  but  belongs  to 
the  so-called  hill-tribes,)  is  dark-brown  of  skin,  with  black,, 
silky,  wavy  hair,  and  a  face  wide-nosed,  heavy-jawed,  fleshy- 
lipped.  More  familiar  is  the  Chinese,  whom  the  observer 
marks  down  by  his  less  than  European  stature,  his  jaundice- 
yellow  skin,  and  coarse,  straight  black  hair ;  the  special  cha- 
racter of  his  features  is  neatly  touched  off  on  his  native 
china-plates  and  paper-screens  which  show  the  snub  nose, 
high  cheek-bones,  and  that  curious  slanting  set  of  the  eyes 
which  we  can  imitate  by  putting  a  finger  near  the  outer 
corners  of  our  own  eyes  and  pushing  upward.  By  com- 
paring such  a  set  of  races  with  our  own  countrymen,  we  are 
able  to  make  out  the  utmost  differences  of  complexion  and 
feature  among  mankind.  While  domg  so,  it  is  plain  that 
white  men,  as  we  agree  to  call  ourselves,  sliow  at  least  two 
main  race-types.      Going  on  board  a  merchant-ship  from 


i]  MAX,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  3 

Copenhagen,  we  find  the  crew  mostly  blue-e3'ed  men  of 
fair  complexion  and  hair,  a  remarkable  contrast  to  the 
Genoese  vessel  moored  alongside,  whose  sailors  show  almost 
to  a  man  swarthy  complexions  and  lustrous  black  eyes  and. 
hair.  These  two  tvpes  of  man  have  been  well  described  as 
the  fliir-whites  and  the  dark-whites. 

It  is  only  within  modern  times  that  the  distinctions  among 
races  have  been  worked  out  by  scientific  methods.  Yet 
since  early  ages,  race  has  attracted  notice  from  its  connexion 
with  the  political  questions  of  countryman  or  foreigner, 
conqueror  or  conquered,  freeman  or  slave,  and  in  conse- 
quence its  marks  have  been  watched  with  jealous  accuracy. 
In  the  Southern  United  States,  till  slavery  was  done  away 
a  few  years  ago,  the  traces  of  negro  descent  were  noted 
with  the  utmost  nicety.  Not  only  were  the  mixed  breeds 
regularly  classed  as  mulattos,  quadroons,  and  down  to  octa- 
roons,  but  even  where  the  mixture  was  so  slight  that 
the  untrained  eye  noticed  nothing  beyond  a  brunette 
complexion,  the  intruder  who  had  ventured  to  sit  down 
at  a  public  dinner  table  was  called  upon  to  show  his  hands, 
and  the  African  taint  detected  by  the  dark  tinge  at  the 
root  of  the  finger-nails. 

Seeing  how  striking  the  broad  distinctions  of  race  are, 
it  was  to  be  expected  that  ancient  inscriptions  and  figures 
should  give  some  view  of  the  races  of  man  as  they  were 
at  the  beginning  of  historical  times.  It  is  so  in  Egypt, 
where  the  oldest  writings  of  the  world  appear.  More  than 
4,000  years  ago  we  begin  to  find  figures  of  the  Egyptians 
themselves,  in  features  much  the  same  as  in  later  times.  In 
the  sixth  dynasty,  about  2,000  B.C.,  the  celebrated  inscrip- 
tion of  Prince  Una  makes  mention  of  the  N'a/isi,  or  negroes, 
who  were  levied  and  drilled  by  ten  thousands  for  the  Egyp- 
tian army.     Under  the  twelfth  dynasty,  on  the  Avails  of  the 


4  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

tomb  of  Knumhetp,  there  is  represented  a  procession  of 
Amii,  -who  are  seen  by  their  features  to  be  of  the  race  to 
ivhich  Syrians  and  Hebrews  belonged.  Especially  the  wall- 
paintings  of  the  tombs  of  the  kings  at  Thebes,  of  the  nine- 
teenth dynasty,  have  preserved  coloured  portraits  of  the  four 
great  races  distinguished  by  the  Egyptians.  These  are  the 
red-brown  Egyptians  themselves,  the  people  of  Palestine  with 
their  aquiline  profile  and  brownish  complexion,  the  flat-nosed, 
thick-lipped  African  negroes,  and  the  fair-skinned  Libyans. 
Thus  mankind  was  already  divided  into  well-marked  races, 
disthiguished  by  colour  and  features.  It  is  surprising  to 
notice  how  these  old-world  types  of  man  are  still  to  be 
recognised.  The  Ethiopian  of  the  ancient  monuments  can 
at  this  day  be  closely  matched.  Notwithstanding  the  many 
foreign  invasions  of  Egypt,  the  mass  of  the  village  popula- 
tion is  true-bred  enough  for  men  to  be  easily  picked  out  as 
representatives  of  the  times  of  the  Pharaohs.  Their  por- 
traits have  only  to  be  drawn  in  the  stiff  style  of  the  monu- 
ments, with  the  eye  conventionally  shown  full-front  in  the 
profile  face,  and  we  have  before  us  the  very  Egyptians  as 
they  depicted  themselves  in  the  old  days  when  they  held 
the  Israelites  in  bondage.  In  the  same  way,  the  ancient 
Egyptian  portraits  of  captives  from  Palestine,  whether 
Syrians,  Phoenicians,  or  Hebrews,  show  the  strongly-marked 
Israelite  type  of  features  to  be  seen  at  this  day  in  every  city 
of  Europe.  Altogether,  the  evidence  of  ancient  monu- 
ments, geography  and  history,  goes  to  prove  that  the  great 
race-divisions  of  mankind  are  of  no  recent  growth,  but 
were  already  settled  before  the  beginning  of  the  historical 
period.  Since  then  their  changes  seem  to  have  been 
comparatively  slight,  except  in  the  forming  of  mixed  races 
by  intermarriage. 

Hence  it  follows  that  the  historic  ages  are  to  be  looked 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  5 

on  as  but  the  modern  period  of  man's  life  on  earth.     Be- 
hind them  lies  the  prehistoric  period,  when  the  chief  work 
was  done  of  forming  and  spreading  over  the  world  the  races 
of  mankind.     Though  tliere  is   no    scale    to  measure  the 
length  of  this  period  by,  there  are  substantial  reasons  for 
taking  it  as  a  long  stretch  of  time.     Looking  at  an  ethno- 
logical map,  coloured  to  show  what  race  of  men  inhabits  each 
region,  it  is  plain  at  a  glance  that  the  world  was  not  peopled 
by  mere  chance  scattering  of  nations,  a  white  tribe  here  and 
a  brown  tribe  there,  with  perhaps  a  black  tribe  in  between. 
Far  from  this,  whole  races  are  spread  over  vast  regions  as 
though  they  grew  there,  and  the  peculiar  type  of  the  race 
seems  more  or  less  connected  with  the  climate  it  lives  in. 
Especially  it  is  seen  that  the  mass  of  black  races  belong 
to  the  equatorial  regions  in  Africa  and  the  Eastern  Archi- 
pelago, the  yellow  race  to  Central  and  Southern  Asia,  the 
white  race  to  temperate  Asia  and  Europe.    Some  guess  may 
even  be  made  from  the  map  which  district  was  the  primitive 
centre  where  each  of  these  races  took  shape,  and  whence  it 
spread  far  and  wide.     Now  if,  as  some  have  thought,  the 
Negros,  Mongolians,  Whites,  and  other  races,  were  distinct 
species,  each  sprung  from  a  separate  origin  in  its  own  region, 
then  the  peopling  of  the  globe  might  require  only  a  moderate 
time,  the  races  having  only  to  spread  each  from  its  own 
birthplace.     But  the  opinion  of  modern  zoologists,  whose 
study  of  the  species  and  breeds  of  animals  makes  them  the 
best  judges,  is  against  this  view  of  several  origins  of  man> 
for  two  principal  reasons.     First,  that  all  tribes  of  men,  from 
the  blackest  to  the  whitest,  the  most  savage  to  the  most 
cultured,  have  such  general  likeness  in  the  structure  of  their 
bodies  and  the  working  of  their  minds,  as  is   easiest  and 
best  accounted  for  by  their  being  descended  from  a  common 
ancestry,  however  distant.    Second,  that  all  the  human  races, 


6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

notwithstanding  their  form  and  colour,  appear  capable  of 
freely  intermarrying  and  forming  crossed  races  of  every 
combination,  such  as  the  millions  of  mulattos  and  mestizos 
sprung  in  the  New  World  from  the  mixture  of  Europeans, 
Africans,  and  native  Americans ;  this  again  points  to  a 
common  ancestry  of  all  the  races  of  man.  We  may  accept 
the  theory  of  the  unity  of  mankind  as  best  agreeing  with 
ordinary  experience  and  scientific  research.  As  yet,  how- 
ever, the  means  are  very  imperfect  of  judging  what  man's 
progenitors  were  like  in  body  and  mind,  in  times  before  the 
forefathers  of  the  present  Negros,  and  Tatars,  and  Austra- 
lians, had  become  separated  into  distinct  stocks.  Nor  is  it 
yet  clear  by  what  causes  th^se  stocks  or  races  passed  into 
their  different  types  of  skull  and  limbs,  of  complexion  and 
hair.  It  cannot  be  at  present  made  out  how  far  the  peculi- 
arities of  single  ancestors  were  inherited  by  their  descendants 
and  became  stronger  by  in-breeding ;  how  far,  when  the 
weak  and  dull-witted  tribes  failed  in  the  struggle  for  land  and 
life,  the  stronger,  braver,  and  abler  tribes  survived  to  leave 
their  types  stamped  on  the  nations  sprung  from  them  ;  how 
far  whole  migrating  tribes  underwent  bodily  alteration  through 
change  of  climate,  food,  and  habits,  so  that  the  peopling  of 
the  earth  went  on  together  with  the  growth  of  fresh  races 
fitted  for  life  in  its  various  regions.  \\'hatever  share  these 
causes  and  others  yet  more  obscure  may  have  had  in  varying 
the  races  of  man,  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  such  differences 
as  between  an  Englishman  and  a  Gold  Coast  negro  are  due 
to  slight  variations  of  breed.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  of 
such  zoological  importance  as  to  have  been  compared  with 
the  differences  between  animals  which  naturalists  reckon 
distinct  species,  as  between  the  brown  bear  with  its  rounded 
forehead,  and  the  polar  bear  with  its  whitish  fur  and  long 
flattened  skull.     If  then  wc  arc  to  go  back  in  thought  to  a 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  7 

time  when  the  ancestors  of  the  African,  the  Australian,  the 
Mongol,  and  the  Scandinavian,  were  as  y-it  one  luidivided 
stock,  the  theory  of  their  common  descent  must  be  so  framed 
as  to  allow  causes  strong  enough  and  time  long  enough 
to  bring  about  changes  far  beyond  any  known  to  have 
taken  place  during  historical  ages.  Looked  at  in  this  way, 
llie  black,  brown,  yellow,  and  white  men  whom  we  have 
supposed  ourselves  examining  on  the  quays,  are  living  re- 
cords of  the  remote  past,  every  Chinese  and  Negro  bearing 
in  his  face  evidence  of  the  antiquity  of  man. 

Next,  what  has  language  to  tell  of  man's  age  on  the 
earth?  It  appears  that  the  distinct  languages  known 
number  about  a  thousand.  It  is  clear,  however,  at  the 
first  glance  that  these  did  not  all  spring  up  separately. 
There  are  groups  of  languages  which  show  such  close  like- 
ness in  their  grammars  and  dictionaries  as  proves  each 
group  to  be  descended  from  one  ancestral  tongue.  Such 
a  group  is  called  a  family  of  languages,  and  one  of  the 
best  known  of  such  families  may  be  taken  as  an  example 
of  their  way  of  growth.  In  ancient  times  Latin  (using  the 
word  in  a  rather  wide  sense)  was  the  language  of  Rome  and 
other  Italian  districts,  and  with  the  spread  of  the  Roman 
empire  it  was  carried  far  and  wide,  so  as  to  oust  the  early 
languages  of  whole  provinces.  Undergoing  in  each  land  a 
different  course  of  change,  Latin  gave  rise  to  the  Romance 
family  of  languages,  of  which  Italian,  Spanish,  and  French 
are  well-known  members.  How  these  languages  have  come 
to  differ  after  ages  of  separate  life,  we  judge  by  seeing  that 
sailors  from  Dieppe  cannot  make  themselves  understood  in 
Malaga,  nor  does  a  knowledge  of  French  enable  us  to  read 
Dante.  Yet  the  Romance  languages  keep  the  traces  of 
their  Roman  origin  plainly  enough  for  Italian,  Spanish,  and 
French  sentences  to  be  taken  and  every  word  referred  to 


8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

something  near  it  in  classical  Latin,  which  may  be  roughly- 
treated  as  the  original  form.  Familiar  proverbs  are  here 
given  as  illustrations,  with  the  warning  to  the  reader  that, 
for  convenience'  sake,  the  comparisons  are  not  all  carried 
out  in  precise  grammatical  form. 

Italian. 

E  meglio     im      uovo     oggi   che   una  gallina  domani. 

est  nulitcs  uintin  ovum   Iwdie  quid  una  gallina  de  tiiane, 

i.e.  Better  is  an  eirg  to-day  than  a  hen  to-morrow. 

Chi     va       piano       va      sano,     chi      va        sano        va        lontano. 
qui  radii  flanuni  vadit  saiiuni,  qui  vadit  sanuni  vadit  lo)ig2im. 
i.e.   He  who  goes  gently  goes  safe,  lie  who  gees  safe  goes  far. 

Spanish. 

Quien  canta    sus   males    espanta. 
qtiein  cantat  suos  malos  expav{c7'e). 
i.e.   He  who  sings  frightens  away  his  ills. 

Por      la      calle    de   despues    se     va      a       la       casa    de     minca. 
^er  illant  callem  de  de-ex-post  se  vadit  ad  illam  casam  de  nutiquain, 
i.e.  By  the  street  of  by  and  by  one  goes  to  the  house  of  never. 

French. 

Un    tiens  vaut  mieux    que    deux  tu       1'  auras. 

unuin  te-'e  valet  melius  gtiod  duos  tu  ilium  Jiabei-e-habes. 
uc.   One  take-it  is  worth  more  than  two  thoa-:_,halt-have-its. 

Parler    de     la         corde        dans         la       maison       d'    un     pendu. 

parabola  de  illa??i  chordam  de  intus  illam  mansioncm  de  tunim  pcnd{o). 

i.e.  (Never  to)  talk  of  a  rope  in  the  house  of  a  hanged  man. 

It  is  plain  on  the  face  of  such  sentences  as  these,  that 
Italian,  Spanish,  and  French  aie  in  fact  transformed  Latin, 
their  words  having  been  gradually  altered  as  they  descended, 
generation  after  generaLioii,  fiuni  the  parent  tongue.     Now 


I.]  MAN,  AN'CIENT  AND  MODERN.  9 

even  if  Latin  were  lost,  philologists  would  still  be  able,  by 
comparing  the  set  of  Romance  languages,  to  infer  that  such 
a  language  must  have  existed  to  give  rise  to  them  all,  though 
no  doubt  such  a  reconstruction  of  Latin  would  give  but  a 
meagre  notion,  either  of  its  stock  of  words  or  its  gram- 
matical inflexions.  This  kind  of  argument  by  which  a  lost 
parent-language  is  discovered  from  the  likeness  among  its 
descendants,  may  be  well  seen  in  another  set  of  European 
tongues.  Let  us  suppose  ourselves  listening  to  a  group  of 
Dutch  sailors ;  at  first  their  talk  may  seem  unintelligible, 
but  after  a  while  a  sharp  ear  will  catch  the  sound  of  well 
known  words,  and  perhaps  at  last  whole  sentences  like 
these: — Kom  hicr .'  Wat  zegt  gij ^  Hoe  is  het  wederl 
Met  ts  een  hevige  storm,  ik  ben  zeer  koud.  Is  de  maan  op  ? 
Ik  weet  niet.  The  spelling  of  these  words,  different  from 
our  mode,  disguises  their  resemblance,  but  as  spoken  they 
come  very  near  correspondmg  sentences  in  English,  some- 
what old-fashioned  or  provincial,  thus  -.—  Come  here  !  What 
say  ye  ?  Hoiu  is  the  loeaiher  ?  It  is  a  heaiy  storm,  I  be 
sore  cold.  Is  the  moon  iipl  I  wit  not.  Now  it  stands 
to  reason  that  no  two  languages  could  have  come  to  be  so 
like,  unless  both  were  descended  from  one  parent  tongue. 
The  argument  is  really  much  like  that  as  to  the  origin  of 
the  ])eople  themselves.  As  we  say,  these  Dutch  and  English 
are  beings  so  nearly  alike  that  they  must  have  descended 
from  a  common  stock,  so  we  say,  these  languages  are  so  like 
that  they  must  have  been  derived  from  a  common  language. 
Dutch  and  English  are  accordingly  said  to  be  closely 
related  to  one  another,  and  the  language  of  Friesland 
proves  on  examination  to  be  another  near  relative.  Thence 
it  is  inferred  that  a  parent  language  or  group  of  dialects,  which 
may  be  called  the  original  Low-Dutch,  or  Low-German, 
must  once   have   been    spoken,    though  it  is  not   actually 


lo  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

to  be  found,  not  happening  to  have  been  written  down  and 
so  preserved. 

Now  it  is  easy  to  see  that  as  ages  go  on,  and  the  languages 
of  a  family  each  take  their  separate  coursj  of  change,  it 
must  become  less  and  less  possible  to  show  their  relation- 
ship by  comparing  whole  sentences.  Philologists  have  to 
depend  on  less  perfect  resemblances,  but  such  are  sufficient 
when  not  only  words  from  the  dictionary  correspond  in  the 
two  languages,  but  also  these  are  worked  up  into  actual 
speech  by  corresponding  forms  of  grammar.  Thus  when 
Sanskrit,  the  ancient  language  of  the  Brahmans  in  India, 
is  compared  with  Greek  and  Latin,  it  appears  that  the 
Sanskrit  verb  da  expresses  the  idea  to  give,  and  makes 
its  present  tense  by  reduplicating  and  adding  a  person-affix, 
so  becoming  dadaini,  nearly  as  Greek  makes  didomi : 
from  the  same  root  Sanskrit  makes  a  future  participle 
dasyamanas,  corresponding  to  Greek  dosomenos,  while 
Sanskrit  datar  matches  Greek  doter  =  giver.  So  where 
Latin  has  vox,  vocis,  vocetji,  voces,  voaim,  vocibi/s,  Sanskrit 
has  vak,  vacas,  vacam,  vacas,  vaahn,  vdgbliyas.  When 
such  thoroughgoing  analogy  as  this  is  found  to  run 
through  several  languages,  as  Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin, 
no  other  explanation  is  possible  but  that  an  ancient  parent 
language  gave  rise  to  them  all,  they  having  only  varied  off 
from  it  in  different  directions.  In  this  way  it  is  shown  that 
not  only  are  these  particular  languages  related  by  descent, 
but  that  groups  of  ancient  and  modern  languages  in  Asia 
and  EuropL:,  the  Indian  group,  the  Persian  group,  the 
Hellenic  or  Greek  group,  the  Italic  or  Latin  group,  the 
Slavonic  group  to  which  Russian  belongs,  the  Teutonic 
group  which  English  is  a  member  of,  the  Keltic  group 
which  Welsh  is  a  member  of,  are  all  descendants  of  one 
common   ancestral    language,    which    is    now  theoretically 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  ii 

called  the  Aryan,  though  practically  its  nature  can  only  be 
made  out  in  a  vague  way  by  comparing  its  descendant 
languages.  Some  of  these  have  come  down  to  us  in  forms 
which  are  extremely  ancient,  as  antiquity  goes  in  our  limited 
chronology.  The  sacred  books  of  India  and  Persia  have 
preserved  the  Sanskrit  and  Zend  languages,  which  by  their 
structure  show  to  the  eye  of  the  philologist  an  antiquity 
beyond  that  of  the  earliest  Greek  and  Latin  inscriptions  and 
the  old  Persian  cuneiform  rock-writing  of  Darius.  But 
the  Aryan  languages  even  in  their  oldest  known  states  had 
already  become  so  different  that  it  was  the  greatest  feat  of 
modern  philology  to  demonstrate  that  they  had  a  common 
origin  at  all.  The  faint  likeness  by  which  Welsh  still  shows 
its  relationship  to  Greek  and  German  may  give  some  idea 
of  the  time  that  may  have  elapsed  since  all  three  were 
developed  off  from  the  original  Aryan  tongue,  which  itself 
probably  ceased  to  exist  long  before  the  historical  period 
began. 

Among  the  languages  of  ancient  nations,  another  great 
group  holds  a  high  place  in  the  world's  history.  This  is  the 
Semitic  family  which  includes  the  Hebrew  and  Phoenician, 
and  the  Assyrian  deciphered  from  the  wedge-characters 
of  Nineveh.  Arabic,  the  language  of  the  Koran,  is  the 
great  modern  representative  of  the  family,  and  the  close- 
ness with  which  it  matches  Hebrew  may  be  shown  in 
familiar  phrases.  The  Arab  still  salutes  the  stranger  with 
salam  alaikum,  "peace  upon  you,"  nearly  as  the  ancient 
Hebrew  would  have  said  shalom  lachem,  tliat  is,  "  peace 
to  you,"  and  the  often-heard  Arabic  exclamation  bis- 
millah  may  be  turned  into  Hebrew,  as  be-shem  ha-Elohim, 
"in  the  name  of  God."  So  the  Hebrew  names  of  per- 
sons mentioned  in  the  Bible  give  the  interpretation 
of    many   Arabic    proper    names,    as   where   Ebed-tnelec/i, 


13  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

"  servant  of  the  king,"  who  took  Jeremiah  out  of  the 
dungeon,  bore  a  name  nearly  like  that  of  the  khalif  Abd- 
el-Melik,  in  Mohammedan  history.  But  no  one  of  these 
Semitic  languages  has  any  claim  to  be  the  original  of 
the  family,  standing  to  the  others  as  Latin  does  to  Italian 
and  French.  All  of  them,  Assyrian,  Pho5nician,  Hebrew, 
Arabic,  are  sister-languages,  pointing  back  to  an  earlier 
parent  language  which  has  long  disappeared.  The  ancient 
Egyptian  language  of  the  hieroglyphics  cannot  be  classed  as 
a  member  of  the  Semitic  family,  though  it  shows  points  of 
resemblance  which  may  indicate  some  remote  connexion. 
There  are  also  known  to  have  existed  before  2000  B.C.  two 
important  languages  not  belonging  to  either  the  Aryan  or 
Semitic  family;  these  were  the  ancient  Babylonian  and  the 
ancient  Chinese.  As  for  the  languages  of  more  outlying 
regions  of  the  world,  such  as  America,  when  they  come 
into  view  they  are  found  likewise  to  consist  of  many 
separate  groups  or  families. 

This  slight  glimpse  of  the  earliest  known  state  of  lan- 
guage in  the  world  is  enough  to  teach  the  interesting  lesson 
that  the  main  work  of  language-making  was  done  in  the 
ages  before  history.  Going  back  as  far  as  philology  can 
take  us,  we  find  already  existing  a  number  of  language- 
groups,  differing  in  words  and  structure,  and  if  they  ever 
had  any  relationship  with  one  another  no  longer  showing 
it  by  signs  clear  enough  for  our  skill  to  make  out.  Of  an 
original  primitive  language  of  mankind,  the  most  patient 
research  has  found  no  traces.  The  oldest  tppes  of  language 
we  can  reach  by  working  back  from  known  languages  show 
no  signs  of  being  primitive  tongues  of  mankind.  Lideed, 
it  may  be  positively  asserted  that  they  are  not  such,  but  that 
ages  of  growth  and  decay  have  mostly  obliterated  the  traces 
how  each  particular  sound   came  to  express  its  particular 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  13 

sense.  Man,  since  the  historical  period,  lias  done  little  in 
the  way  of  absolute  new  creation  of  language,  for  the  good 
reason  that  his  wants  were  already  supplied  by  the  words 
he  learnt  from  his  fathers,  and  all  he  had  to  do  when  a  new 
idea  came  to  him  was  to  work  up  old  words  into  some 
new  shape.  Thus  the  study  of  languages  gives  much  the 
same  view  of  man's  antiquity  as  has  been  already  gained 
from  the  study  of  races.  The  philologist,  asked  how  long 
he  thinks  mankind  to  have  existed,  answers  that  it  must 
have  been  long  enough  for  human  speech  to  have  grown 
from  its  earliest  beginnings  into  elaborate  languages,  and 
for  these  in  their  turn  to  have  developed  into  families  spread 
far  and  wide  over  the  world.  This  immense  work  had 
been  already  accomplished  in  ages  before  the  earliest  in- 
scriptions of  Egypt,  Babylon,  Assyria,  Phoenicia,  Persia, 
Greece,  for  these  show  the  great  families  of  human  speech 
already  in  full  existence. 

Next,  we  have  to  look  at  culture  or  civilization,  to  see 
whether  this  also  shows  signs  of  man  having  lived  and 
laboured  in  ages  earlier  than  the  earliest  which  historical 
records  can  tell  of.  For  this  purpose  it  is  needful  to  under- 
stand what  has  been  the  general  course  of  arts,  knowledge, 
and  institutions.  It  is  a  good  old  rule  to  work  from  the 
known  to  the  unknown,  and  all  intelligent  people  have 
much  to  tell  from  their  own  experience  as  to  how  civi- 
lization develops.  The  account  which  an  old  man  can 
give  of  England  as  he  remembers  it  in  his  schoolboy  days, 
and  of  the  inventions  and  improvements  he  has  seen  come 
in  since,  is  in  itself  a  valuable  lesson.  Thus,  when  start- 
ing from  London  by  express  train  to  reach  Edinburgh  by 
dinner-time,  he  thinks  of  when  it  used  to  be  fair  coach- 
travelling  to  get  through  in  two  days  and  nights.  Catching 
sight  of  a  signal-post  on  the  line,  he  remembers  how  such 


14  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

semaphores  {that  is,  sign-bearers)  were  then  the  best  means 
of  telegraphing,  and  stood  waving  their  arms  on  the  hills 
between  London  and  Plymouth,  signallmg  the  Admiralty- 
messages.  Thinking  of  the  electric  telegraph  which  has 
superseded  them,  reminds  him  that  this  invention  arose  out  of 
a  discovery  made  in  his  youth  as  to  the  connexion  between 
electricity  and  magnetism.  This  again  suggests  other 
modern  scientific  discoveries  that  have  opened  to  us  the 
secrets  of  the  universe,  such  as  the  spectrum-analysis  which 
now  makes  out  with  such  precision  the  materials  of  the  stars, 
which  is  just  what  our  fathers  were  quite  certain  no  man  on 
earth  ever  could  know.  Our  informant  can  tell  us,  too, 
how  knowledge  has  not  only  increased,  but  is  far  more 
widely  spread  than  formerly,  when  the  thriving  farmer's  son 
could  hardly  get  schooling  practically  so  good  as  the 
labourer's  son  is  now  entitled  to  of  right.  He  may  then 
go  on  to  explain  to  his* hearers  how,  since  his  time,  the  laws 
of  the  land  have  been  improved  and  better  carried  out,  so 
that  men  are  no  longer  hanged  for  stealing,  that  more  is  done 
to  reform  the  criminal  classes  instead  of  merely  punishing 
them,  that  life  and  property  are  safer  than  in  old  times. 
Last,  but  not  least,  he  can  show  from  his  own  recollection 
that  people  are  morally  a  shade  better  than  they  were, 
that  public  opinion  demands  a  somewhat  higher  standard 
of  conduct  than  in  past  generations,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
sharper  disapproval  that  now  falls  on  cheats  and  drunkards. 
From  such  examples  of  the  progress  in  civilisation  that  has 
come  in  a  single  country  and  a  single  lifetime,  it  is  clear 
that  the  world  has  not  been  standing  still  with  us,  but  new 
arts,  new  thoughts,  new  institutions,  new  rules  of  life,  have 
arisen  or  been  developed  out  of  the  older  state  of  things. 

Now  this  growth  or  development  in  civilization,  so  rapid 
in  our  own  time,  appears  to  have  been  going  on  more  or 


i]  MAN,  ANXIENT  AND  MODERN.  15 

less  actively  since  tlie  early  ages  of  man.  Proof  of  this 
comes  to  us  in  several  different  ways.  History,  so  far  as  it 
reaches  back,  shows  arts,  sciences,  and  political  institutions 
beginning  in  ruder  states,  and  becoming  in  the  course  of 
ages  more  intelligent,  more  systematic,  more  perfectly 
arranged  or  organized,  to  answer  their  purposes.  Not  to 
give  many  instances  of  a  fact  so  familiar,  the  history  of 
parliamentary  government  begins  with  the  old-world  councils ' 
of  the  chiefs  and  tumultuous  assemblies  of  the  whole  people. 
The  history  of  medicine  goes  back  to  the  times  when  epilepsy 
or  "seizure"  (Greek,  epilepsis)  was  thought  to  be  really  the 
act  of  a  demon  seizing  and  convulsing  the  patient.  But 
our  object  here  is  to  get  beyond  such  ordinary  information 
of  the  history  books,  and  to  judge  what  stages  civilization 
passed  through  in  times  yet  earlier.  Here  one  valuable 
aid  is  archaeology,  which  for  instance  shows  us  the  stone 
hatchets  and  other  rude  instruments  which  belonged  to  early 
tribes  of  men,  thus  proving  how  low  their  state  of  arts  was; 
of  this  more  will  be  said  presently.  Another  useful  guide 
is  to  be  had  from  survivals  in  culture.  Looking  closely 
into  the  thoughts,  arts,  and  habits  of  any  nation,  the  student 
finds  everywhere  the  remains  of  older  states  of  things  out 
of  which  they  arose.  To  take  a  trivial  example,  if  we  want 
to  know  why  so  quaintly  cut  a  garment  as  the  evening  dress- 
coat  is  worn,  the  explanation  may  be  found  thus.  The 
cutting  away  at  the  waist  had  once  the  reasonable  purpose 
of  preventing  the  coat  skirts  from  getting  in  the  way  in 
riding,  while  the  pair  of  useless  buttons  behind  the  waist 
are  also  relics  from  the  times  when  such  buttons  really 
serv^ed  the  purpose  of  fastening  these  skirts  behind  ;  the 
curiously  cut  collar  keeps  the  now  misplaced  notches  made  to 
allow  of  its  being  worn  turned  up  or  down,  the  smart  facings 
represent  the  old  ordinary  lining,  and  the  sham  cuffs  now 


i6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

made  with  a  seam  round  the  wrist  are  survivals  from  real 
cuffs  when  the  sleeve  used  to  be  turned  back.  Thus  it  is 
seen  that  the  present  ceremonial  dress-coat  owes  its  pecu- 
liarities to  being  descended  from  the  old-fashioned  practical 
coat  in  which  a  man  rode  and  worked.  Or  again,  if  one 
looks  In  modern  English  life  for  proof  of  the  Norman  Con- 
quest eight  centuries  ago,  one  may  find  it  in  the  "  Oh  yes  / 
Oh  yes  .f^  of  the  town-crier,  who  all  unknowingly  keeps  up 
the  old  French  form  of  proclamation,  "  Oyez !  Oyez  I"  that 
is,  "  Hear  ye  !  Hear  ye  ! "  To  what  yet  more  distant  periods 
of  civilization  such  survivals  may  reach  back,  is  well  seen  in 
an  example  from  India.  There,  though  people  have  for  ages 
kindled  fire  for  practical  use  with  the  flint  and  steel,  yet 
the  Brahmans,  to  make  the  sacred  fire  for  the  daily  sacri- 
fice, still  use  the  barbaric  art  of  violently  boring  a  pointed 
stick  into  another  piece  of  wood  till  a  spark  comes.  Asked 
why  they  thus  waste  their  labour  when  they  know  better, 
they  answer  that  they  do  it  to  get  pure  and  holy  fire. 
But  to  us  it  is  plain  that  they  are  really  keeping  up  by 
unchanging  custom  a  remnant  of  the  ruder  life  once  led 
by  their  remote  ancestors.  On  the  whole,  these  various 
ways  of  examining  arts  and  sciences  all  prove  that  they 
never  spring  forth  perfect,  like  Athene  out  of  the  split  head 
of  Zeus.  They  come  on  by  successive  steps,  and  where 
other  information  fails,  the  observer  may  often  trust  himself 
to  judge  from  the  mere  look  of  an  invention  how  it  probably 
arose.  Thus  no  one  can  look  at  a  cross-bow  and  a  common 
long-bow  without  being  convinced  that  the  long-bow  was 
the  earlier,  and  that  the  cross-bow  was  made  afterwards  by 
fitting  a  common  bow  on  a  stock,  and  arranging  a  trigger 
to  let  go  the  string  after  taking  aim.  Though  history  fails 
to  tell  us  who  did  this  and  when,  we  feel  almost  as  sure  of  it 
as  of  the  known  historical  facts  that  the  cross-bow  led  up  to 


/^ 


I.]  MAN,  ANXIENT  AND  MODERN,  17 

the  match-lock,  and  that  again  to  the  flint-lock  musket,  and 
that  again  to  the  percussion  musket,  and  that  again  to  the 
breech-loading  rifle. 

Putting  these  various  means  of  information  together,  it 
often  becomes  possible  to  picture  the  whole  course  of  an 
art  or  an  institution,  tracing  it  back  from  its  highest  state 
in  the  civilized  world  till  we  reach  its  beginnings  in  the  life 
of  the  rudest  tribes  of  men.  For  instance,  let  us  look  at  a 
course  of  modern  mathematics,  as  represented  in  the  books 
taken  in  for  university  honours.  A  student  living  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time  would  have  had  no  infinitesimal  calculus  to 
study,  hardly  even  algebraic  geometry,  for  what  is  now  called 
the  higher  mathematics  was  invented  since  then.  Going 
back  into  the  Middle  Ages,  we  come  to  the  time  when 
algebra  had  been  just  brought  in,  a  novelty  due  to  the 
Hindu  mathematicians  and  their  scholars,  the  Arabs ;  and 
next  we  find  the  numeral  ciphers,  o,  i,  2,  3,  &c.,  beginning 
to  be  known  as  an  improvement  on  the  old  calculating 
board  and  the  Roman  I.,  II.,  III.  In  the  classic  ages  yet 
earlier,  we  reach  the  time  when  the  methods  of  Euklid  and 
the  other  Greek  geometers  first  appeared.  So  we  get  back 
to  what  was  known  to  the  mathematicians  of  the  earliest 
historical  period  in  Babylonia  and  Egypt,  an  arithmetic 
clumsily  doing  what  children  in  the  lower  standards  are 
taught  with  us  to  do  far  more  neatly,  and  a  rough  geometry 
consisting  of  a  few  rules  of  practical  mensuration.  This  is 
as  far  as  history  can  go  toward  the  beginnings  of  mathe- 
matics, but  there  are  other  means  of  discovering  through  what 
lower  stages  the  science  arose.  The  very  names  still  used  to 
denote  lengths,  such  as  cubit,  hand,  foot,  span,  nail,  show 
how  the  art  of  mensuration  had  its  origin  in  times  when 
standard  m.easures  had  not  yet  been  invented,  but  men  put 
their  hands  and  feet  alongside  objects  of  which  they  wished 
3 


i8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

to  estimate  the  size.  So  there  is  abundant  evidence  that 
arithmetic  came  up  from  counting  on  the  fingers  and  toes, 
such  as  may  still  be  seen  among  savages.  AVords  stili 
used  for  numbers  in  many  languages  were  evidently  made 
during  the  period  when  such  reckoning  on  the  hands  and 
feet  was  usual,  and  they  have  lasted  on  ever  since.  Thus  a 
Malay  expresses  five  by  the  word  /////c?,  which  (though  he 
does  not  know  it)  once  meant  ''hand,"  so  that  it  is  seen  to 
be  a  survival  from  ages  when  his  ancestors,  wanting  a  word 
for  five,  held  up  one  hand  and  said  "  hand."  Indeed,  the 
reason  of  our  own  decimal  notation,  why  we  reckon  by  tens 
instead  of  the  more  convenient  twelves,  appears  to  be  that 
cur  forefathers  got  from  their  own  fingers  the  habit  of  count- 
ing by  tens  which  has  been  since  kept  up,  an  unchanged 
relic  of  primitive  man.  The  following  chapters  contain 
many  other  cases  of  such  growth  of  arts  from  the  simplest 
origins.  Thus,  in  examining  tools,  it  will  be  seen  how  the 
rudely  chipped  stone  grasped  in  the  hand  to  hack  with,  led 
up  to  the  more  artificially  shaped  stone  chisel  fitted  as  a 
hatchet  in  a  wooden  handle,  how  afterwards  when  metal  came 
in  there  was  substituted  for  the  stone  a  bronze  or  iron  blade, 
till  at  last  was  reached  the  most  perfect  modern  foresters' 
axe,  with  its  steel  blade  socketed  to  take  the  well-balanced 
handle.  Specimens  such  as  those  in  Chapter  VIII.  show 
these  great  moves  in  the  development  of  the  axe,  which 
began  before  chronology  and  history,  and  has  been  from 
the  first  one  of  man's  chief  aids  in  civilizing  himself. 

It  does  not  follow  from  such  arguments  as  these  that 
civilization  is  always  on  the  move,  or  that  its  movement  is 
always  progress.  On  the  contrary,  history  teaches  that  it 
remains  stationary  for  long  periods,  and  often  falls  back. 
To  understand  such  decline  of  culture,  it  must  be  borne  in 
mind  that  the  highest  arts  and  the  most  elaborate  arrange- 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  19 

tnents  of  society  do  not  always  prevail,  in  fact  they  may  be 
too  perfect  to  hold  their  ground,  for  people  must  have  what 
fits  with  their  circumstances.  There  is  an  instructive  lesson 
to  be  learnt  from  a  remark  made  by  an  Englishman  at 
Singapore,  who  noticed  with  surprise  two  curious  trades 
flourishing  there.  One  was  to  buy  old  English-built  ships, 
cut  them  down  and  rig  them  as  junks  ;  the  other  was  to  buy 
English  percussion  muskets  and  turn  them  into  old-fashioned 
flintlocks.  At  first  sight  this  looks  like  mere  stupidity,  but 
on  consideration  it  is  seen  to  be  reasonable  enough.  It 
was  so  difficult  to  get  Eastern  sailors  to  work  ships  of 
European  rig,  that  it  answered  better  to  provide  them  with 
the  clumsier  craft  they  were  used  to  ;  and  as  for  the  guns,  the 
hunters  far  away  in  the  hot,  damp  forests  were  better  off 
Avith  gunflints  than  if  they  had  to  carry  and  keep  dry  a 
stock  of  caps.  In  both  cases,  what  they  wanted  was  not 
the  highest  product  of  civilization,  but  something  suited  to 
the  situation  and  easiest  to  be  had.  Now  the  same  rule 
applies  both  to  taking  in  new  civilization  and  keeping  up 
old.  When  the  life  of  a  people  is  altered  by  emigration  into 
a  new  country,  or  by  war  and  distress  at  home,  or  mixture 
with  a  lower  race,  the  culture  of  their  forefathers  may  be 
no  longer  needed  or  possible,  and  so  dwindles  away.  Such 
degeneration  is  to  be  seen  among  the  descendants  of  Por- 
tuguese in  the  East  Indies,  who  have  intermarried  with  the 
natives  and  f.illen  out  of  the  march  of  civilization,  so  that 
newly-arrived  Europeans  go  to  look  at  them  lounging  about 
their  mean  hovels  in  the  midst  of  luxuriant  tropical  fruits 
and  flowers,  as  if  they  had  been  set  there  to  teach  by 
example  how  man  falls  in  culture  where  the  need  of  effort 
is  wanting.  Another  frequent  cause  of  loss  of  civilization 
is  when  people  once  more  prosperous  are  ruined  or  driven 
from  their  homes,  like  those  Shoshonee  Indians  who  have 


20  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

taken  refuge  from  their  enemies,  the  Blackfeet,  in  the  wilds 
of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  where  they  now  roam,  called 
Digger  Indians  from  the  wild  roots  they  dig  for  as  part  of 
their  miserable  subsistence.  Not  only  the  degraded  state 
of  such  outcasts,  but  the  loss  of  particular  arts  by  other 
peoples,  may  often  be  explained  by  loss  of  culture  under 
unfavourabb  conditions.  For  instance,  the  South  Sea 
Islanders,  though  not  a  very  rude  people  when  visited  by 
Captain  Cook,  used  only  stone  hatchets  and  knives,  being 
indeed  so  ignorant  of  metal  that  they  planted  the  lirst  iron 
nails  they  got  from  the  English  sailors,  in  the  hope  of 
raising  a  new  crop.  Possibly  their  ancestors  never  had 
metals,  but  it  seems  as  likely  that  these  ancestors  were  an 
Asiatic  people  to  whom  metal  was  known,  but  who,  through 
emigration  to  ocean  islands  and  separation  from  their 
kinsfolk,  lost  the  use  of  it  and  fell  back  into  the  stone  age. 
It  is  necessary  for  the  student  to  be  alive  to  the  import- 
ance of  decline  in  civilization,  but  it  is  here  more  particu- 
larly mentioned  in  order  to  point  out  that  it  in  no  way 
contradicts  the  theory  that  civilization  itself  is  developed 
from  low  to  high  stages.  One  cannot  lose  a  thing  without 
having  had  it  f.rst,  and  wherever  tribes  are  fallen  from  the 
higher  civilization  of  their  ancestors,  this  only  leaves  it  to 
be  accounted  for  how  that  higher  civilization  grew  up. 

On  the  whole  it  appears  that  wherever  there  are  found 
elaborate  arts,  abstruse  knowledge,  complex  institutions, 
these  are  results  of  gradual  development  from  an  earlier, 
simpler,  and  ruder  state  of  life.  No  stage  of  civilization 
comes  into  existence  spontaneously,  but  grows  or  is 
developed  out  of  the  stage  before  it.  This  is  the  great 
principle  which  every  scholar  must  lay  firm  hold  of,  if  he 
intends  to  understand  either  the  world  he  lives  in  or  the 
history  of  the  past.     Let  us  now  see  how  this  bears  on  the 


I.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  21 

antiquity  and  early  condition  of  mankind.  The  monuments 
of  Egypt  and  Babylonia  show  that  toward  5,000  years  ago 
certain  nations  had  already  come  to  an  advanced  state  of 
culture.  No  doubt  the  greater  part  of  the  earth  was  then 
peopled  by  barbarians  and  savages,  as  it  remained  afterwards. 
But  in  the  regions  of  the  Nile  and  the  Euphrates  there  was 
civilization.  The  ancient  Egyptians  had  that  greatest  mark  of 
a  civilized  nation,  the  art  of  v/riting  ;  indeed  the  hieroglyphic 
characters  of  their  inscriptions  appear  to  have  been  the 
origin  of  our  alphabet.  They  were  a  nation  skilled  in 
agriculture,  raising  from  their  fields  fertilized  by  the  yearly 
inundation  those  rich  crops  of  grain  that  provided  subsist- 
ence for  the  dense  population.  How  numerous  and  how 
skilled  in  constructive  art  the  ancient  Egyptians  were,  is 
seen  by  every  traveller  who  looks  on  the  pyramids  which 
have  made  their  name  famous  through  all  history.  The 
great  pyramid  of  Gizeh  still  ranks  among  the  wonders  of  the 
world,  a  mountain  of  hewn  limestone  and  syenite,  whose 
size  Londoners  describe  by  saying  that  it  stands  on  a  square 
the  size  of  Lincoln's-InnFields,  and  rises  above  the  height 
of  St.  Paul's.  The  perfection  of  its  huge  blocks  and  the 
beautiful  masonry  of  the  inner  chambers  and  passages  show 
the  skill  not  only  of  the  stonecutter  but  of  the  practical 
geometer.  The  setting  of  the  sides  to  the  cardinal  points 
is  so  exact  as  to  prove  that  the  Egyptians  were  excellent 
observers  of  the  elementary  facts  of  astronomy  ;  the  day  of 
the  equinox  can  be  taken  by  observing  the  sunset  across 
the  face  of  the  pyramid,  and  the  neighbouring  Arabs  still 
adjust  their  astronomical  dates  by  its  shadow.  As  far 
back  as  anything  is  known  of  them,  the  Egyptians  appear  to 
have  w^orked  in  bronze  and  iron,  as  well  as  gold  and  silver. 
So  their  arts  and  habits,  their  sculpture  and  carpentry, 
their  reckoning  and   measuring,  their  system   of  official  life 


22  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

with  its  governors  and  scribes,  their  religion  with  its  orders 
of  priesthood  and  its  continual  ceremonies,  all  appear  the 
results  of  long  and  gradual  growth.  What,  perhaps,  gives 
the  highest  idea  of  antiquity,  is  to  look  at  very  early  monu- 
ments, such  as  the  tomb  of  prince  Teta  of  the  4th  dynasty 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  notice  how  Egyptian  culture 
had  even  then  begun  to  grow  stiff  and  traditional.  Art 
was  already  reaching  the  stage  when  it  seemed  to  men 
that  no  more  progress  was  possible,  for  their  ancestors  had 
laid  down  the  perfect  rule  of  life,  which  it  was  sin  to  alter 
by  way  of  reform.  Of  the  early  Babylonians  or  Chaldaeans 
less  is  known,  yet  their  monuments  and  inscriptions  show 
how  ancient  and  how  high  was  their  civilization.  Their 
writing  was  in  cuneiform  or  wedge-shaped  characters,  of 
which  they  seem  to  have  been  the  inventors,  and  which 
their  successors,  the  Assyrians,  learnt  from  them.  They 
were  great  builders  of  cities,  and  the  bricks  inscribed  with 
their  kings'  names  remain  as  records  of  their  great  temples, 
such,  for  instance,  as  that  dedicated  to  the  god  of  Ur,  at 
the  city  known  to  Biblical  history  as  Ur  of  the  Chaldees. 
Written  copies  of  their  laws  exist,  so  advanced  as  to  have 
provisions  as  to  the  property  of  married  women,  the  im- 
prisonment of  a  father  or  mother  for  denying  their  son,  the 
daily  fine  of  a  half-measure  of  corn  levied  on  the  master 
who  killed  or  ill-used  his  slaves.  Their  astrology,  which 
made  the  names  of  Chaldcean  and  Babylonian  famous 
ever  since,  led  them  to  make  those  regular  observations 
of  the  heavenly  bodies  which  gave  rise  to  the  science  of 
astronomy.  The  nation  which  wrote  its  name  thus 
largely  in  the  book  of  civilization,  dates  back  into  the 
same  period  of  high  antiquity  as  the  Egyptian.  These 
then  are  the  two  nations  whose  culture  is  earliest  vouched 
for  by  inscriptions  done  at  the  very  time  of  their  ancient 


I]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  23 

grandeur,  and  therefore  it  is  safer  to  appeal  to  them  than 
to  other  nations  which  can  only  show  as  proofs  of  their 
antiquity  writings  drawn  up  in  far  later  ages.  Looking  at 
their  ancient  civilization,  it  seems  to  have  been  formed  by 
men  whose  minds  worked  much  like  our  own.  No  super- 
human powers  were  required  for  the  work,  but  just  human 
nature  groping  on  by  roundabout  ways,  reaching  great 
results,  yet  not  half  knowing  how  to  profit  by  them  when 
reached ;  solving  the  great  problem  of  writing,  yet  not  see- 
ing how  to  simplify  the  clumsy  hieroglyphics  into  letters  ; 
devoting  earnest  thought  to  religion  and  yet  keeping  up 
a  dog  and  cat  worship  which  was  a  jest  even  to  the 
ancients  ;  cultivating  astronomy  and  yet  remaining  mazed 
in  the  follies  of  astrology.  In  the  midst  of  their  most 
striking  eftbrts  of  civilization,  the  traces  may  be  discerned 
of  the  barbaric  condition  which  prevailed  before  ;  the 
Egyptian  pyramids  are  burial-mounds  like  those  of  pre- 
historic England,  but  huge  in  size  and  built  of  hewn  stone 
or  brick  ;  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics,  with  their  pictures  of 
men  and  beasts  and  miscellaneous  things,  tell  the  story  of 
their  own  invention,  how  they  began  as  a  mere  picture- 
writing  like  that  of  the  rude  hunters  of  America.  Thus  it 
appears  that  civilization,  at  the  earliest  dates  where  history 
brings  it  into  view,  had  already  reached  a  level  which  can 
only  be  accounted  for  by  growth  during  a  long  pras-historic 
period.  This  result  agrees  with  the  conclusions  already 
arrived  at  by  the  study  of  races  and  language. 

Without  attempting  here  to  draw  a  picture  of  life  as  it 
may  have  been  among  men  at  their  first  appearance  on  the 
earth,  it  is  important  to  go  back  as  far  as  such  evidence 
of  the  progress  of  civilization  may  fairly  lead  us.  In  judg- 
ing how  mankind  may  have  once  lived,  it  is  also  a  great  help 
to   observe   how  they  are   actually  found   living.       Human 


24  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

life  may  be  roughly  classed  into  three  great  stages,  Savage, 
Barbaric,  Civilized,  which  may  be  defined  as  follows.  The 
lowest  or  savage  state  is  that  in  which  man  subsists  on  wild 
plants  and  animals,  neither  tilling  the  soil  nor  domesticating 
creatures  for  his  food.  Savages  may  dwell  in  tropical  forests 
where  the  abundant  fruit  and  game  may  allow  small  clans  to 
live  in  one  spot  and  find  a  living  all  tlie  year  round,  while 
in  barer  and  colder  regions  they  have  to  lead  a  wandering 
life  in  quest  of  the  wild  food  which  they  soon  exhaust  in 
any  place.  In  making  their  rude  implements,  the  materials 
used  by  savages  are  what  they  find  ready  to  hand,  such 
as  wood,  stone,  and  bone,  but  they  cannot  extract  metal 
from  the  ore,  and  therefore  belong  to  the  Stone  Age.  Men 
may  be  considered  to  have  risen  into  the  next  or  barbaric 
state  when  they  take  to  agriculture.  With  the  certain  supply 
of  food  which  can  be  stored  till  next  harvest,  settled  village 
and  town  life  is  established,  with  immense  results  in  the 
improvement  of  arts,  knowledge,  manners,  and  government. 
Pastoral  tribes  are  to  be  reckoned  in  the  barbaric  stage, 
for  though  their  life  of  shifting  camp  from  pasture  to 
pasture  may  prevent  settled  habitation  and  agriculture,  they 
have  from  their  herds  a  constant  supply  of  milk  and  meat. 
Some  barbaric  nations  have  not  come  beyond  using  stone 
implements,  but  most  have  risen  into  the  Metal  Age. 
Lastly,  civilized  life  may  be  taken  as  beginning  with  the 
art  of  writing,  which  by  recording  history,  law,  knowledge, 
and  religion  for  the  service  of  ages  to  come,  binds  together 
the  past  and  the  future  in  an  unbroken  chain  of  intellectual 
and  moral  progress.  This  classification  of  three  great  stages 
of"  culture  is  practically  convenient,  and  has  the  advantage 
of  not  describing  imaginary  states  of  society,  but  such  as 
are  actually  known  to  exist.  So  far  as  the  evidence  goes, 
it    seems  that    civilization   has    actually  grown    up    in    the 


1.]  MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  25 

world  through  these  three  stages,  so  that  to  look  at  a  savage 
of  the  Brazilian  forests,  a  barbarous  New  Zealanderor  Daho- 
man,  and  a  civilized  European,  may  be  the  student's  best 
guide  to  understanding  the  progress  of  civilization,  only  he 
must  be  cautioned  that  the  comparison  is  but  a  guide,  not  a 
full  explanation. 

In  this  way  it  is  reasonably  inferred  that  even  in  countries 
now  civilized,  savage  and  low  barbaric  tribes  must  have 
once  lived.  Fortunately  it  is  not  left  altogether  to  the 
imagination  to  picture  the  lives  of  these  rude  and  ancient 
men,  for  many  relics  of  them  are  found  which  may  be  seen 
and  handled  in  museums.  It  has  now  to  be  considered 
what  sort  of  evidence  of  man's  age  is  thus  to  be  had  from 
archaeology  and  geology,  and  what  it  proves. 

When  an  antiquary  examines  the  objects  dug  up  m  any 
place,  he  can  generally  judge  in  what  state  of  civilization 
its  inhabitants  have  been.  Thus  if  there  are  found  weapons 
of  bronze  or  iron,  bits  of  fine  pottery,  bones  of  domestic 
cattle,  charred  corn  and  scraps  of  cloth,  this  would  be 
proof  that  people  lived  there  in  a  civilized,  or  at  least  a 
high  barbaric  condition.  If  there  are  only  rude  implements 
of  stone  and  bone,  but  no  metal,  no  earthenware,  no 
remains  to  show  that  the  land  was  tilled  or  cattle  kept,  this 
would  be  evidence  that  the  country  had  been  inhabited  by 
some  savage  tribe.  One  of  the  chief  questions  to  be  asked 
about  the  condition  of  any  people  is,  whether  they  have 
metal  in  use  for  their  tools  and  weapons.  If  so,  they  may 
be  said  to  be  in  the  metal  age.  If  they  have  no  copper 
or  iron,  but  make  their  hatchets,  knives,  spear-heads,  and 
other  cutting  and  piercing  instruments  of  stone,  they  are 
said  to  be  in  the  stone  age.  Wherever  such  stone  imple- 
ments are  picked  up,  as  they  often  are  in  our  own  ploughed 
fields,  they  prove  that  stone-age  men  have  once  dwelt  in  the 


26  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap, 

land.  It  IS  an  important  tact  that  in  every  region  ot  the 
inhabited  world  ancient  stone  implements  are  thus  found  in 
the  ground,  showing  that  at  some  time  the  inhabitants  were 
in  this  respect  like  the  modern  savages.  In  countries  where 
the  people  have  long  been  metal  workers,  they  have  often  lost 
all  memory  of  what  these  stone  things  are,  and  tell  fanciful 
stories  to  account  for  their  being  met  with  in  ploughmg  or 
digging.  One  favourite  notion,  in  England  and  elsewhere,  is 
that  the  stone  hatchets  are  "thunderbolts"  fallen  from  the 
sky  with  the  lightning  flash.  It  has  been  imagmed  that  in 
the  East,  the  seat  of  the  most  ancient  civilizations,  some 
district  might  be  found  without  any  traces  of  man  having 
lived  there  in  a  state  of  early  rudeness,  so  that  in  this  part 
of  the  world  he  might  have  been  civilized  from  the  first. 
But  it  is  not  so.  In  Assyria,  Palestine,  Egypt,  as  in  other 
lands,  one  may  find  sharp-chipped  flints  which  show  that 
here  also  tribes  in  the  stone  age  once  lived,  before  the 
use  of  metal  brought  in  higher  civilization. 

Whether  it  may  be  considered  or  not  that  Europe  was  a 
quarter  of  the  globe  inhabited  by  the  earliest  tribes  of  men, 
it  so  happens  that  remains  found  in  Europe  furnish  at  pre- 
sent the  best  proofs  of  man's  antiquity.  To  understand 
these,  it  must  be  explained  that  the  stone  age  had  an  earlier 
and  a  later  period,  as  may  be  plainly  seen  in  looking 
at  a  good  collection  of  stone  implements.  Fig.  i  is  in- 
tended to  give  some  idea  of  those  in  use  in  the  later  stone 
age.  The  hatchet  is  neatly  shaped  and  edged  by  rubbing 
on  a  grinding-stone,  as  is  also  the  hammer-head.  The 
spear  and  arrows,  scraper,  and  flake-knife  it  would  have 
been  waste  of  labour  to  grind,  but  they  are  chipped  out  with 
much  skill.  On  tlie  whole,  these  stone  implements  are 
much  like  those  which  the  North  American  Indians  have 
been  using  to  our  own  day.     The  question  is.  how  long  ago 


^] 


MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN. 


tribes  who  made  such  stone  implements  were  living  in 
Europe.  As  to  this,  we  may  fairly  judge  from  the  position 
in  which  they  are  found  in  Denmark.  The  forests  of  that 
country  are  mainly  of  beeches,  but  in  the  peat-mosses  lie 
innumerable  trunks  of  oaks,  which  show  that  at  an  earlier 
period  oak  forests  prevailed,  and  deeper  still  there  lie  trunks 
of  pine  trees,  which  show  that  there  were  pine-forests  still 
older  than  the  oak  forests.  Thus  there  have  been  three 
successive  forest-periods,  the  beech,  the  oak,  and  the 
pine,  and  the  depth  of  the  peat-mosses,  which  in  places 


Fig.  1. — Later  Stone  Age  (neolithic)  implement':,  a.  ?trnecelt  or  hatchet,  f.  flint 
!:pear-head  ;  c,  scraper;  d,  arrow-heads;  ?,  flint  flake-knives  ;  /.  core  from  wiixh 
flint-flakes  taken  off  ;  ^,  fl.nt-awl ;  A,  flint  saw ;  i,  stone  hammer-head. 


is  as  much  as  thirty  feet,  shows  that  the  period  of  the  pine 
trees  was  thousands  of  years  ago.  While  the  forests  have 
been  changing,  the  condition  of  the  people  living  among 
them  has  changed  also.  The  modern  woodman  cuts  down 
the  beech  trees  with  his  iron  axe,  but  among  the  oak  trunks 
in  the  peat  are  found  bronze  swords  and  shield-bosses,  which 
show  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  country  were  then  in  the 
bronze  age,  and  lastly,  a  flint  hatchet  taken  out  from  where 
it  lay  still  lower  in  the  peat  beneath  the  pine  trunks,  proves 
that   stone  age   men  in  Denmark    lived  in  the  pine  forest 


28  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

period,  which  carries  them  back  to  high  antiquity.  In 
England,  the  tribes  who  have  left  such  stone  implements 
were  in  the  land  before  the  invasion  of  that  Keltic  race 
whom  we  call  the  ancient  Britons,  and  who  no  doubt  came 
armed  with  weapons  of  metal.  The  stone  hatchet-blades 
and  arrow-heads  of  the  older  population  lie  scattered 
over  our  country,  hill  and  dale,  moor  and  fen,  near  the 
surface  of  the  ground,  or  deeper  underground  in  peat- 
mosses, or  beds  of  mud  and  silt.  Such  bogs  or  mud-flats 
began  at  a  date  which  chronologists  would  call  ancient.  But 
they  are  what  geologists,  accustomed  to  vaster  periods  of 
time,  consider  modern.  They  belong  to  the  newer  alluvial 
deposits,  that  is,  they  were  formed  within  the  times  when 
the  lay  of  the  land  and  the  flow  of  the  streams  were  much 
as  they  are  now.  To  get  an  idea  of  this,  one  has  only  to 
look  down  from  a  hillside  into  a  wide  valley  below,  and 
notice  how  its  flat  flooring  of  mud  and  sand,  stretching 
right  across,  must  have  been  laid  down  by  flood-waters 
following  very  much  their  present  course  along  the  main 
stream  and  down  the  side  slopes.  The  people  of  the 
newer  stone  age,  whose  implements  are  seen  in  Fig.  i, 
lived  within  this  historically  ancient,  but  geologically  mod- 
ern period,  and  relics  of  them  are  found  only  in  places 
where  man  or  nature  could  then  have  placed  them. 

But  there  had  been  a  still  earlier  period  of  the  stone  age, 
when  yet  ruder  tribes  of  men  lived  in  our  parts  of  the  world, 
when  the  climate  and  the  face  of  the  country  were  strangely 
different  from  the  present  state  of  things.  On  the  slopes  of 
river  valleys  such  as  that  of  the  Ouse,  in  England,  and  the 
Somme,  in  France,  50  or  100  feet  above  the  present  river- 
banks,  and  thus  altogether  out  of  the  reach  of  any  flood 
now,  there  are  beds  of  so-called  drift  gravel.  Out  of  these 
beds  have  been  dug  numerous   rude   implements  of  flint, 


I] 


MAN,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN. 


chipped  into  shape  by  the  hands  of  men  who  had  gained 
no  mean  dexterity  in  the  art,  as  any  one  will  iind  who  will 
try  his  hand  at  making  one,  with  any  tools  he  thinks  fit. 
The  most  remarkable  implements  of  this  earlier  stone  age 
are  the  picks  or  hatchets  shown  in  Fig.  2.  The  coarseness 
of  their  finish,  and  the  absence  of  any  signs  of  grinding 
even  at  the  edges  of  hacking  or  cutting  instruments,  show 
that  the  makers  had  not  come  nearly  to  the  skill  of  the  later 


Fig.  2. — Earlier  Stone  Age  (paleolithic)  flint  picks  or  hatchets. 


stone  age.  It  is  usual  to  distinguish  the  two  kinds  of  im- 
plements, and  the  periods  they  belong  to,  by  the  terms 
introduced  by  Sir  J.  Lubbock,  palaeolithic  and  neohthic, 
that  is  "old-stone  "  and  "  new-stone."  Looking  now  at  the 
high  gravel-beds  in  which  palaeolithic  implements  such  as  those 
show-n  in  Fig.  2  occur,  it  is  evident  from  their  position  that 
they  had  noticing  to  do  with  the  water-action  which  is  now 
laying  down  and  shifting  sand-banks  and  mud-flats  at  the 
bottom  of  the  valleys,  nor  with  the  present  rain  wash  which 
scours  the  surface  of  the  hillsides.  They  must  have  been 
deposited  in  a  former  period  when  the  condition   of  land 


30  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

and  water  was  different  from  what  it  is  now.  How  far  this 
state  of  things  was  due  to  the  valleys  not  being  yet  cut  out 
to  near  their  present  depth,  to  the  wliole  country  lying  lower 
above  the  sea-level,  or  to  the  rivers  being  vastly  larger  than 
at  present  from  the  heavier  rainfall  of  a  pluvial  period,  it 
would  be  raising  too  intricate  geological  questions  to  dis- 
cuss here.  Geology  shows  the  old  drift-gravels  to  belong  to 
times  when  the  glacial  or  icy  period  with  its  arctic  climate 
was  passing,  or  had  passed  away,  in  Europe.  From  the 
bones  and  teeth  found  with  the  flint  implements  in  the 
gravel-beds,  it  is  known  what  animals  inhabited  the  land  at 
the  same  time  with  the  men  of  the  old  stone  age.  The 
mammoth,  or  huge  woolly  elephant,  and  several  kinds 
of  rhinoceros,  also  extinct,  browsed  on  the  branches  of 
the  forest  trees,  and  a  species  of  hippopotamus  much 
like  that  at  present  living  frequented  the  rivers.  The 
musk-ox  and  the  grizzly  bear,  which  England  harboured 
in  this  remote  period,  may  still  be  hunted  in  the  Rocky 
iMountains,  but  the  ancient  cave-bear,  which  was  one  of 
the  dangerous  wild  beasts  of  our  land,  is  no  longer  on 
the  face  of  the  earth.  The  British  lion  was  of  a  laiger 
breed  than  those  now  in  Asia  and  Africa,  and  perhaps  than 
those  which  Herodotus  mentions  as  prowling  in  Macedonia 
in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  and  falling  on  the  camels  of  Xerxes* 
army.  To  judge  by  such  signs  as  the  presence  of  the  rein- 
deer, and  the  mammoth  with  its  hairy  coat,  the  climate  of 
Europe  was  severer  than  now,  perhaps  like  that  of  Siberia. 
How  long  man  had  been  in  the  land  there  is  no  clear  evi- 
dence. For  all  we  know,  he  may  have  lasted  on  from  an 
earlier  and  more  genial  period,  or  he  may  have  only 
lately  migrated  into  Europe  from  some  warmer  region. 
Implements  like  his  are  not  unknown  in  Asia,  as  where  in 
Southern    India,   above  Madras,  there  lies  at  the   foot    of 


I.]  MAN,  AN'CIEXT  AND  MODERN.  31 

the  Eastern  Ghats  a  terrace  of  irony  clay  or  laterite,  con- 
taining stone  implements  of  very  similar  make  to  those  of 
the  drift-men  in  Europe. 

These  European  savages  of  the  mammoth-period  resorted 
much  to  shelter  at  the  foot  of  overhanging  cliffs,  and  to 
caverns  such  as  Kent's  Hole  near  Torquay,  where  the 
implements  of  the  men  and  the  bones  of  the  beasts  are 
found  together  in  abundance.  In  Central  France  especially, 
the  examination  of  such  bone-caves  has  brought  to  light 
evidence  of  the  whole  way  of  life  of  a  group  of  ancient 


Fig.  3. — Sketch  of  mannuutU  iVom  cave  ul'  La  MaJuleinc  (Lartct  and  Christy). 

tribes.  The  reindeer  which  have  now  retreated  to  high 
northern  latitudes,  were  then  plentiful  in  France,  as  appears 
from  their  bones  and  antlers  imbedded  with  remains  of  the 
mammoth  under  the  stalagmite  floors  of  the  caves  of 
Perigord.  \Vith  them  are  found  rude  stone  hatchets  and 
scrapers,  pounding-stones,  bone  spear-heads,  awls,  arrow- 
straighteners,  and  other  objects  belonging  to  a  life  like  that 
of  the  modern  Esquimaux  who  hunt  the  reindeer  on  the 
coasts  of  Hudson's  Bay.  Like  the  Esquimaux  also,  these 
early  French  and  Swiss  sa\ages  spent  their  leisure  time  in 
carving  figures  of  animals.  Among  many  such  figures  found 
in  the  French  caves  is  a  mammoth,  Fig.  3,  scratched  on  a 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


piece  of  Its  own  ivory,  so  as  to  touch  off  neatly  the  shaggy 
hair  and  huge  curved  tusks  which  distinguish  the  mammoth 
from  other  species  of  elephant.  There  has  been  also  found 
a  rude  representation  of  a  man,  Fig.  4,  grouped  with  two 
horses'  heads  and  a  snake  or  eel ;  this  is  interesting  as 
being  the  most  ancient  human  portrait  known. 

Thus  it  appears  that  man  of  the  older  stone  age  was 
already  living  when  the  floods  went  as  high  above  our 
present  valley-flats  as  the  tops  of  the  high  trees  growing 
there  now  reach,  and  when  the  climate  was  of  that  Lapland 
kind  suited  to  the  woolly  mammoth  and  the  reindeer,  and 


(  -'- 


Fig.  4.  — Sketch  of  man  and  horses  fr  mx  cave  (Lartet  and  Christy). 


the  rest  of  the  un-English  looking  group  of  animals  now 
perished  out  of  this  region,  or  extinct  altogether.  From 
all  that  is  known  of  the  slowness  with  which  such  altera- 
tions take  place  anywhere  in  the  lie  of  the  land,  the 
climate,  and  the  wild  animals,  we  cannot  suppose  changes 
so  vast  to  have  happened  without  a  long  lapse  of  time 
before  the  newer  stone  age  came  in,  when  the  streams  had 
settled  down  to  near  their  present  levels,  and  the  climate  and 
the  wild  creatures  had  become  much  as  they  were  witliin  the 
historical  period.  It  is  also  plain  from  the  actual  remains 
found,  that  these  most  ancient  known  tribes  w^ere  Avild 
hunters  and  tishers,  such  as  wc  should  now  class  as  savages. 
It  is  best,  however,  not  to  apply  to  them  the  term  primitive 
men,  as  this  might  be  understood  to  mean  that  they  were 


I.]  MAX,  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN.  33 

the  first  men  who  appeared  on  earth,  or  at  least  like  them, 
The  life  the  men  of  the  mammoth-period  must  have 
led  at  Abbeville  or  Torquay,  shows  on  the  face  of  it 
reasons  against  its  being  man's  primitive  life.  These  old 
stone-age  men  are  more  likely  to  have  been  tribes  whose 
ancestors  while  living  under  a  milder  climate  gained  some 
rude  skill  in  the  arts  of  procuring  food  and  defending  them- 
selves, so  that  afterwards  they  were  able  by  a  hard  struggle 
to  hold  their  own  against  the  harsh  weather  and  fierce  beasts 
of  the  quaternary  period. 

How  long  ago  this  period  was,  no  certain  knowledge  is 
yet  to  be  had.  Some  geologists  have  suggested  twenty 
thousand  years,  while  others  say  a  hundred  thousand  or 
more,  but  these  are  guesses  made  where  there  is  no  scale 
to  reckon  time  by.  It  is  safest  to  be  content  at  present  to 
regard  it  as  a  geological  period  lying  back  out  of  the  range 
of  chronology.  It  is  thought  by  several  eminent  geologists 
that  stones  shaped  by  man,  and  therefore  proving  his  pre- 
sence, occur  in  England  and  France  in  beds  deposited 
before  the  last  glacial  period,  when  much  of  the  continent 
lay  submerged  under  an  icy  sea,  where  drifting  icebergs 
dropped  on  what  is  now  dry  land  their  huge  boulders  of 
rock  transported  from  distant  mountains.  This  cannot  be 
taken  as  proved,  but  if  true  it  would  immensely  increase 
our  estimate  of  man's  age.  At  any  rate  the  conclusive 
proofs  of  man's  existence  during  the  quaternary  or  mam- 
moth period  do  not  even  bring  us  into  view  of  the  remoter 
time  when  human  life  first  began  on  earth.  Thus  geology 
establishes  a  principle  which  lies  at  the  A'ery  foundation  of 
the  science  of  anthropology.  Until  of  late,  while  it  used 
to  be  reckoned  by  chronologists  that  the  earth  and  man 
were  less  than  6,000  years  old,  the  science  of  geology  could 
hardly  exist,  there  being  no  room  for  its  long  processes  of 
4 


34  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap.  i. 

building  up  the  strata  containing  the  remains  of  its  vast 
successions  of  plants  and  animals.  These  are  now  accounted 
for  on  the  theory  that  geological  time  extends  over  millions 
of  years.  It  is  true  that  man  reaches  back  comparatively 
little  way  into  this  immense  lapse  of  time.  Yet  his  first 
appearance  on  earth  goes  back  to  an  age  compared  with 
which  the  ancients,  as  we  call  them,  are  but  moderns.  The 
few  thousand  years  of  recorded  history  only  take  us  back 
to  a  prcehistoric  period  of  untold  length,  during  which  took 
place  the  primary  distribution  of  mankind  over  the  earth 
and  the  development  of  the  great  races,  the  formation  of 
speech  and  the  settlement  of  the  great  families  of  language, 
and  the  growth  of  culture  up  to  the  levels  of  the  old  world 
nations  of  the  East,  the  forerunners  and  founders  of  modern 
civilized  life. 

Having  now  sketched  what  history,  archaeology,  and 
geology  teach  as  to  man's  age  and  course  on  the  earth, 
we  shall  proceed  in  the  following  chapters  to  describe  more 
fully  Man  and  his  varieties  as  they  appear  in  natural 
history,  next  examining  the  nature  and  growth  of  Language, 
and  afterwards  the  development  of  the  knowledge,  arts,  and 
institutions,  which  make  up  Civilization. 


CHAPTER    II. 


MAN    AND    OTHER    ANIMALS. 


Vertebrate  Animals,  35  — Succession  and  Descent  of  Species,  37 — Apes 
and  Man,  comparison  of  structure,  38 — Hands  and  Feet,  42 — Hair, 
44 — Features,  44 — Brain,  45 — Mind  in  Lower  Animals  and  Man,  47, 

To  understand  rightly  the  construction  of  the  human  body, 
and  to  compare  our  own  Hmbs  and  organs  with  those  of  other 
animals,  requires  a  thorough  knowledge  of  anatomy  and 
physiology.  It  will  not  be  attempted  here  to  draw  up  an 
abstract  of  these  sciences,  for  which  such  handbooks 
should  be  studied  as  Huxley's  Elementary  Physiology  and 
Mivart's  Elementary  Anatomy.  But  it  will  be  useful  to 
give  a  slight  outline  of  the  evidence  as  to  man's  place  in 
the  animal  world,  which  may  be  done  without  requiring 
special  knowledge  in  the  reader. 

That  the  bodies  of  other  animals  more  or  less  correspond 
in  structure  to  our  own  is  one  of  the  lessons  we  begin 
to  learn  in  the  nursery.  Boys  playing  at  horses,  one  on 
all-fours  and  the  other  astride  on  his  back,  have  already 
some  notion  how  the  imagined  horse  matches  a  real  one 
as  to  head,  eyes,  and  ears,  mouth  and  teeth,  back  and 
legs.  If  one  questions  a  country  lad  sitting  on  a  stile 
watching  the  hunters  go  by,  he  knows  well  enough  that 
the  huntsman  and  his  horse,  the  hounds  and  the  hare  they 


36  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap, 

are  chasing,  are  all  creatures  built  up  on  the  same  kind 
of  bony  scaftblding  or  skeleton,  that  their  life  is  carried  on 
by  means  of  similar  organs,  lungs  to  breathe  with,  a  stomach 
to  digest  the  food  taken  in  by  the  mouth  and  gullet,  a 
heart  to  drive  the  blood  through  the  vessels,  while  the  eyes, 
ears,  and  nostrils  receive  in  them  all  in  like  manner  the 
impressions  of  sight,  hearing,  and  smell.  Very  likely  the 
l^easant  has  taken  all  this  as  a  matter  of  course  without 
ever  reflecting  on  it,  and  even  more  educated  people  are 
apt  to  do  the  same.  Had  it  come  as  a  new  discovery,  it 
would  have  set  any  intelligent  mind  thinking  what  must  be 
the  tie  or  connexion  between  creatures  thus  formed  as  it 
were  on  one  original  pattern,  only  varied  in  different  modes 
for  different  ends.  The  scientific  comparison  of  animals, 
even  when  made  in  the  most  elementary  way,  does  at  once 
bring  this  great  problem  before  our  minds..  In  some  cases, 
more  exact  knowledge  shows  that  the  fi;rst  rough  comparison 
of  man  and  beast  may  want  correction.  For  instance, 
when  a  man's  skeleton  and  a  horse's  are  set  side  by  side, 
it  becomes  plain  that  the  horse's  knee  and  hock  do  not 
answer,  as  is  popularly  supposed,  to  our  elbow  and  knee, 
but  to  our  wrist  and  ankle.  The  examination  of  the  man's 
limb  and  the  horse's  leads  to  a  further  and  remarkable 
conclusion,  that  the  horse's  fore-  and  hind  leg  really  cor 
respond  to  a  man's  arm  and  leg  in  which  all  the  fingers  and 
toes  should  have  become  useless  and  shrunk  away,  except 
one  finger  and  one  toe,  which  are  left  to  be  walked  upon, 
with  the  nail  become  a  hoof.  The  general  law  to  be  learnt 
from  the  series  of  skeletons  in  a  natural  history  museum,  is 
that  through  order  after  order  of  fishes,  reptiles,  birds,  beasts, 
up  to  man  hunself,  a  common  type  or  pattern  may  be 
traced,  belonging  to  all  animals  which  are  vertebrate,  that 
is    which  have  a  backbone.    Limbs  may  still  be  recognised 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  37 

though  their  shape  and  service  have  changed,  and  though 
they  may  even  have  dwindled  into  remnants,  as  if  left  not 
for  use,  but  to  keep  up  the  old  model.  Thus,  although  a 
perch's  skeleton  differs  so  much  from  a  man's,  its  pectoral 
and  ventral  fins  still  correspond  to  arms  and  legs.  Snakes 
are  mostly  limbless,  yet  there  are  forms  which  connect 
them  with  the  quadrupeds,  as  for  instance,  the  boa-con- 
strictor's skeleton  shows  a  pair  of  rudimentary  hind-legs. 
The  Greenland  whale  has  no  visible  hind-limbs,  and 
its  fore-limbs  are  paddles  or  flippers,  yet  when  dissected, 
the  skeleton  shows  not  only  remnants  of  what  in  man 
would  be  the  leg-bones,  but  the  flipper  actually  has  within 
it  the  set  of  bones  which  belong  to  the  human  arm  and 
hand.  It  is  popularly  considered  that  man  is  especially 
distinguished  from  the  lower  animals  by  not  having  a  tail ; 
yet  the  tail  is  plainly  to  be  seen  in  the  human  skeleton, 
represented  by  the  last  tapering  vertebrae  of  the  spine. 

All  these  are  animals  now  living.  But  geology  shows 
that  in  long-past  ages  the  earth  has  been  inhabited  by 
species  different  from  those  at  present  existing,  and  yet 
evidently  related  to  them.  In  the  tertiary  period,  Australia 
was  distinguished  as  now  by  its  marsupial  or  pouched 
animals,  but  these  were  not  of  any  present  species,  and 
mostly  far  larger;  even  the  tallest  kangaroo  now  to  be 
seen  is  a  puny  creature  in  comparison  with  the  enormous 
extinct  diprotodon,  whose  skull  was  three  feet  long.  So 
in  South  America  there  lived  huge  edentate  animals,  now 
poorly  represented  by  the  sloths,  anteaters  and  arma- 
dillos, to  be  seen  in  our  Zoological  Gardens.  Elephants 
are  found  fossil  in  the  miocene  deposits,  but  the  species 
were  all  different  from  those  in  Africa  and  India  now.  These 
are  common  examples  of  the  great  principle  now  received 
by   all   zoologists,   that   from   remote   geological   antiquity 


38  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

there  have  from  tmie  to  time  appeared  on  earth  new  species 
of  animals,  so  far  similar  to  those  which  came  before  them 
as  to  look  as  if  the  old  types  had  been  altered  to  fit  new 
conditions  of  life,  the  earlier  forms  then  tending  to  die  out 
and  disappear.  This  relation  between  the  older  species  of 
vertebrate  animals  and  the  newer  species  which  have  sup- 
planted them,  is  a  matter  of  actual  observation,  and  beyond 
dispute.  Many  zoologists,  now  perhaps  the  majority,  go  a 
step  farther  than  this,  not  only  acknowledging  that  there  is 
a  relation  between  the  new  species  and  the  old,  but  seeking 
to  explain  it  by  the  hypothesis  of  descent  or  development, 
now  often  called,  from  its  great  modern  expounder,  the 
Darwinian  theory.  The  formation  of  breeds  or  varieties  of 
animals  being  an  admitted  fact,  it  is  argued  that  natural  varia- 
tion under  changed  conditions  of  life  can  go  far  enough  to 
produce  new  species,  which  by  better  adaptation  to  climate 
and  circumstances  may  supplant  the  old.  On  this  theory, 
the  present  kangaroos  of  Australia,  sloths  of  South  America, 
and  elephants  of  India,  are  not  only  the  successors  but  the 
actual  descendants  of  extinct  ones,  and  the  fossil  bones  of 
tertiary  horse  like  animals  with  three- toed  and  four  toed 
feet  show  what  the  remote  ancestors  of  our  horses  were 
like,  in  ages  before  the  unused  toes  dwindled  to  the  splint- 
bones  which  represent  them  in  the  horse's  leg  now.  Ac- 
cording to  the  doctrine  of  descent,  when  several  species  of 
animals  living  at  the  same  time  show  close  resemblance  in 
structure,  it  is  inferred  that  this  resemblance  must  have  been 
inherited  by  all  from  one  ancestral  species.  Now  of  all  the 
mammalia,  or  animals  which  suckle  their  young,  those 
whose  structure  brings  them  closest  to  man  are  the  apes 
or  monkeys,  and  among  these  the  catarhine  or  near- 
nostrilled  apes  of  the  Old  World,  and  among  these  the 
group  called  anthropoid  or  manlike,  which  inhabit  tropical 


II.J 


MAN  AND  OTHER  ANLMALS. 


39 


40  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

forests  from  Africa  to  the  Eastern  Archipelago.  By  now 
comparing  their  skeletons,  it  will  be  seen  that  in  any  scale 
of  nature  or  scheme  of  creation  these  animals  must  be 
placed  in  somewhat  close  relation  to  man.  No  competent 
anatomist  who  has  examined  the  bodily  structure  of  these 
apes  considers  it  possible  that  man  can  be  descended  from 
any  of  them,  but  according  to  the  doctrine  of  descent  they 
appear  as  the  nearest  existing  oftshoots  from  the  same 
primitive  stock  whence  man  also  came. 

Professor  Huxley's  Afati's  Place  in  Nature,  in  which  this 
anatomical  comparison  is  made,  contains  a  celebrated  draw- 
ing which  is  copied  in  Fig.  5  as  the  readiest  means  of  show- 
ing how  the  anthropoid  apes  correspond  bone  for  bone  with 
ourselves.  At  the  same  time  it  illustrates  some  main  points 
in  which  their  bodily  actions  are  unlike  ours.  It  has  been 
said  that  the  child  first  takes  on  him  the  dignity  of  man 
when  he  leaves  off  going  on  all-fours.  But  in  fact,  stand- 
ing and  walking  upright  is  not  a  mere  matter  of  training  ; 
it  belongs  to  the  arrangement  of  the  human  body  being 
different  from  that  of  quadrupeds.  The  limbs  of  the  dog 
or  cow  are  so  proportioned  as  to  bring  them  down  on  all- 
fours,  and  this  is  to  a  less  degree  the  case  with  the  apes, 
while  the  head  and  trunk  of  the  growing  child  are  lifted 
toward  the  erect  attitude  by  the  disproportionate  growth  of 
the  lower  limbs.  Though  man's  standing  upright  recpiiros 
continued  muscular  effort,  he  is  so  built  as  to  keep  his 
balance  more  readily  than  other  animals  in  this  posi- 
tion. It  may  be  noticed  from  the  figure  how  in  man 
the  opening  at  the  base  of  the  skull  (occipital  foramen) 
through  which  the  spinal  cord  passes  up  into  the  brain, 
is  farther  to  the  front  than  in  the  apes,  so  tliat  his  skull, 
instead  of  pitching  forward,  is  balanced  on  the  toj)  of  the 
alias  vertebra  (so  called  from  Atlas  supporting  the  globe). 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  41 

The  figure  shows  also  the  S-hke  curvature  of  man's  spine, 
and  how  the  bony  pelvis  or  basin  forms  a  broad  support 
for  his  intestines  as  he  stands  upright,  in  which  attitude  the 
feet  serve  as  bases  enabling  the  legs  to  carry  the  trunk. 
Thus  the  erect  posture,  only  imitated  with  difficult  eftbrt 
by  the  showman's  performing  animals,  is  to  man  easy  and 
unconstrained.  Not  through  great  differences  of  struc- 
ture, but  by  adjustments  of  bones  and  muscles,  the  fore- 
and  hind-  limbs  of  quadrupeds  w'ork  in  accord,  while  m 
man,  whose  muscular  adaptation  is  for  going  on  his  legs, 
there  is  no  such  reciprocal  action  between  the  legs  and 
arms.  Of  the  monkey  tribes,  many  walk  fairly  on  all- 
fours  as  quadrupeds,  with  legs  bent,  arms  straightened 
forward,  soles  and  palms  touching  the  ground.  But  the 
higher  man-like  apes  are  adapted  by  their  structure  for  a 
climbing  life  among  the  trees,  whose  branches  they  grasp 
with  feet  and  hands.  When  the  orang-utan  takes  to  the 
ground  he  shambles  clumsily  along,  generally  putting  down 
the  outer  edge  of  the  feet  and  the  bent  knuckles  of  the 
hands.  The  orang  and  gorilla  have  the  curious  habit  of 
resting  on  their  bent  fists,  so  as  to  draw  their  bodies  forward 
between  their  long  arms,  like  a  cripple  between  his  crutches. 
The  nearest  approach  that  apes  naturally  make  to  the  erect 
attitude,  is  where  the  gibbon  will  go  along  on  its  feet, 
touching  the  ground  with  its  knuckles  first  on  one  side  and 
then  on  the  other,  or  will  run  some  distance  with  its  arms 
thrown  back  above  its  head  to  keep  the  balance,  or  when  the 
gorilla  will  rise  on  its  legs  and  rush  forward  to  attack.  All 
these  modes  of  locomotion  may  be  understood  from  the 
skeletons  in  the  figure.  The  apes  thus  present  interesting 
intermediate  stages  between  quadruped  and  biped.  But  only 
man  is  so  formed  that,  using  his  feet  to  carry  him,  he  has 
his  hands  free  for  their  special  work. 


42 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


In  comparing  man  with  the  lower  animals,  it  is  wrong  to 
set  down  his  pre-eminence  entirely  to  his  mind,  without 
noticing  the  superiority  of  his  limbs  as  instruments  for 
practical  arts.  If  one  looks  at  the  illustrations  to  "  Reynard 
the  Fox,"  where  the  artist  does  his  best  to  represent  the 
lion  holding  a  sceptre,  the  she-wolf  flirting  a  fan,  or  the  fox 
writing  a  letter ;  what  he  really  shows  is,  how  ill  adapted  the 
limbs  of  quadrupeds  are  to  such  actions.  Man's  being  the 
*'  tool-using  animal "  is  due  to  his  having  hands  to  use  the 
tool  as   well  as  mind  to  invent  it ;  and  only  the  apes,  as 


Fig.  6. — a,  hand,  l\  foot,  of  chimpanzee  (after  Vog:)  ;  c,  hand,  d,  foot,  of  man. 

most  nearly  approaching  man  in  their  limbs,  can  fairly 
imitate  the  use  of  such  instruments  as  a  spoon  or  a  knife. 
In  Fig.  6  the  hand  and  foot  of  the  chimpanzee  may  be 
compared  with  those  of  man.  Here  the  ape's  foot  b^  looks 
so  like  a  hand,  tliat  many  naturalists  have  classed  the  higher 
apes  under  the  name  of  four-handed  animals,  or  quadriimana. 
In  anatomical  structure  it  is  a  foot,  but  it  is  a  ])rehcnsile  or 
grasping  foot,  able  to  clip  or  pinch  an  object  by  setting  the 
great  toe  thumb-wise  against  the  others,  which  the  human 
foot  d,  cannot  do.  It  is  true  that  among  people  who  go 
barefoot  the  great  toe  is  not  quite  so  helpless  as  that  of  a 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  43 

boot-wearing  European.  With  the  naked  foot  the  savage 
Australian  picks  up  his  spear,  and  the  Hindu  tailor  holds  his 
cloth  as  he  squats  sewing.  The  above  drawing  is  purposely 
taken,  not  from  the  free  foot  of  the  savage,  but  from  the 
European  foot  cramped  by  the  stiff  leather  boot,  because 
this  shows  in  the  utmost  way  the  contrast  between  ape  and 
man.  In  the  ape,  it  is  seen  that  both  the  hands  and  feet 
gain  their  suitability  for  a  tree-chmbing  life  at  the  loss  of 
their  suitability  for  walking  on  the  ground.  But  man's 
upper  and  lower  extremities  have  become  differentiated  or 
specialised  in  two  opposite  ways,  the  human  foot  becoming 
a  stepping-machine  with  less  grasping-power  than  the  ape- 
foot,  while  the  human  hand  comes  to  excel  the  ape-hand  as 
a  special  organ  for  feeling,  holding,  and  handling.  The  figure 
c  shows  the  longer  and  freely-acting  thumb  and  the  wider 
flexible  palm  in  man,  the  sensitive  cushions  at  our  finger- 
ends  also  giving  us  greater  delicacy  of  touch.  It  is  most 
instructive  to  visit  the  monkey-house  at  the  Zoological 
Gardens  for  the  purpose  of  comparing  hands  of  high  and 
low  kinds.  The  hand  of  the  marmoset  with  its  five 
claw-nailed  digits,  is  a  mere  grasping  instrument  hardly 
capable  of  handhng.  Other  low  monkeys  have  the  thumbs 
small  and  not  opposable,  that  is,  their  ends  do  not 
meet  those  of  the  other  fingers,  whereas  the  thumbs  of  the 
higher  apes  are  (as  the  figure  shows)  opposable  hke  ours. 
How  far  the  value  of  the  hand  as  a  mechanical  instrument 
depends  on  this  opposability,  any  one  may  satisfy  himself 
by  using  his  hand  with  the  thumb  stiff.  It  is  plain  that 
man's  hand,  enabling  him  to  shape  and  wield  weapons  and 
tools  to  subdue  nature  to  his  own  ends,  is  one  cause  of 
his  standing  first  among  animals.  It  is  not  so  obvious,  but 
it  is  true,  that  his  intellectual  development  must  have  been 
in  no  small  degree  gained  by  the  use  of  his  hands.     From 


44  ANTIIROPOLCGY.  [chap. 

handling  objects,  putting  them  in  different  positions,  and 
setting  them  sitie  by  side,  he  was  led  to  those  simplest 
kinds  of  comparing  and  measuring  which  are  the  first 
elements  of  exact  knowledge,  or  science. 

Outwardly,  the  shaggy  hair  of  the  apes  contrasts  with  the 
comparative  nakedness  of  the  human  skin.  In  man  as  in 
lower  animals,  the  thatch  of  hair  indeed  forms  an  effective 
shelter  to  the  head.  The  hairy  fringe  round  the  human 
mouth  in  the  adult  male  has  in  some  races  a  strong  growth, 
as  in  the  European  or  the  native  of  Australia.  But  in 
others,  as  the  African  negro  and  the  so-called  American 
Indian,  the  scanty  face-hair  looks  as  though  it  had  dwindled 
to  the  mere  remnant  of  a  fuller  growth.  Looked  at  in  this 
way,  the  hairy  patches  on  the  Englishman's  breast  and  limbs, 
though  practically  of  no  importance,  are  an  object  of  curious 
interest  to  the  naturalists  who  consider  them  relics  from 
the  remote  period  when  man's  ancestral  stock  had  a  fuller 
hairy  covering,  whose  want  is  now  supplied  by  artificial 
shelter  suited  to  season  and  climate.  It  is  interesting 
to  notice  that  there  are  some  few  human  beings  to  be 
met  with,  whose  faces  and  bodies  are  largely  covered 
with  long  shaggy  hair.  Such  a  face-covering  hides  the 
play  of  feature — that  expressive  means  of  intercourse  be- 
tween mind  and  mind.  Had  the  skeletons  of  apes  and 
man  in  our  figure  been  clothed  with  flesh,  we  should 
have  seen  plainly  the  signs  of  man's  higher  organisation  in 
the  flexible  versatile  features,  in  whose  movements  and  folds 
are  symbolised  the  pleasures  and  pains,  the  loves  and  hates, 
of  every  phase  of  human  life.  How  coarse  and  clumsy  are 
the  corresponding  changes  of  face  in  the  monkey-tribes, 
such  as  the  drawing  back  of  the  corners  of  the  mouth  and 
wrinkling  of  the  lower  eyelid  which  constitute  an  ape's 
smile,  or  the   rise  and  fall  of  the  baboon's  eyebrows  and 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  45 

forehead  in  anger.  The  visitor  froni  some  other  planet,  so 
often  imagined  as  coming  to  our  earth  and  forming  his 
judgments  by  what  he  sees,  might  well  discern  in  the 
difference  between  man's  face  and  the  gorilla's  muzzle 
some  measure  of  the  discrepancy  within. 

The  brain  being  the  instrument  or  organ  of  mind, 
anatomists  comparing  the  brains  of  animals  have  looked 
for  well-marked  distinctions  between  the  less  and  the  more 
intelligent.  In  the  natural  order  of  Primates,  to  which  man 
belongs  with  the  monkeys  and  lemurs,  the  series  of  brains 
shows  a  remarkable  rise  or  development  from  lower  to 
higher  forms.  The  lemur  has  a  small  and  comparatively 
smooth  brain,  whereas  the  high  anthropoid  apes  have 
brains  which  strikingly  approach  man  s.  In  fact  the  lemur 
has  very  little  mind  in  comparison  with  the  sagacious  and 
teachable  chimpanzee  or  orang-utan.  But  man's  reason 
so  vastly  surpasses  that  of  the  highest  apes,  that  naturalists 
have  wondered  at  the  likeness  of  their  brain  to  ours,  which 
is  illustrated  in  the  accompanying  Fig.  7,  representing 
the  brain  of  the  chimpanzee  a,  and  of  man  b,  whole  on 
the  left  to  show  the  convolutions,  and  cut  across  on  the 
right  to  expose  the  interior.  To  compare  their  structure 
the  two  brains  are  drawn  of  the  same  size,  but  in  facit  the 
chimpanzee  brain  is  much  smaller  than  the  human.  It  is 
one  great  difference  between  man  and  the  anthropoid  apes, 
that  his  brain  exceeds  theirs  in  quantity ;  in  a  rough  way 
he  has  three  pounds  of  brain  to  their  one.  It  is  seen  also 
that  in,  the  ape-brain  the  lobes  or  hemispheres  have  fewer 
and  simpler  windings  than  the  more  complex  convolutions 
of  the  human  brain,  which  in  genc-al  outline  they  resemble 
Now  both  size  and  complexity  mean  mind-power.  The 
lobes  of  the  brain  consist  within  of  the  "  white  matter " 
with    its    innumerable  fibres  carr)ing  nerve  currents,   while 


45 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


O    X 


«  s 


II.J  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  47 

the  outer  coating  is  formed  of  the  "grey  matter,"  contain- 
ing the  brain-corpuscles  or  cells  from  which  the  fibres  issue, 
and  which  are  centres  through  which  the  combinations  are 
made  which  we  are  conscious  of  as  thoughts.  As  the 
coating  of  grey  matter  follows  the  foldings  of  the  brain 
down  into  the  fissures,  it  is  evident  that  the  increased 
complexity  of  the  convolutions,  combined  with  greater 
actual  size  of  brain,  furnishes  man  with  a  vastly  more 
extensive  and  intricate  thinking-apparatus  than  the  animals 
nearest  below  him  in  the  order  of  nature. 

Having  looked  at  some  of  the  important  differences 
between  the  bodies  of  man  and  lower  animals,  we  may 
venture  to  ask  the  still  harder  question,  How  far  do  their 
minds  work  like  ours  ?  No  full  answer  can  be  given,  yet 
there  are  some  well  ascertained  points  to  judge  by.  To 
begin,  it  is  clear  that  the  simple  processes  of  sense,  will, 
and  action,  are  carried  on  in  man  by  the  same  bodily 
machinery  as  in  other  high  vertebrate  animals.  How  like 
their  organs  of  sense  are,  is  well  illustrated  by  the  anatomist 
who  dissects  a  bullock's  eye  as  a  substitute  for  a  man's,  to 
show  how  the  picture  of  the  outer  world  is  thrown  by  the 
lenses  on  the  retina  or  screen,  into  which  spread  the  end- 
fibres  of  the  optic  nerve  leading  into  the  brain.  Not  but 
what  the  touch,  sight,  and  other  senses  in  the  various  orders 
of  animals  have  their  special  differences,  as  where  the  eagle's 
eyes  are  focussed  to  see  small  objects  far  beyond  man's 
range,  while  the  horse's  eyes  are  so  set  in  his  head  that 
they  do  not  converge  like  ours,  and  he  must  practically 
have  two  pictures  of  the  two  sides  of  the  road  to  deal 
with.  Such  special  differences,  however,  make  the  general 
resemblance  all  the  more  striking.  Next,  the  nervous  system 
in  beast  and  man  shows  the  same  common  plan,  the  braia 
and  spinal  cord  forming  a  central  nervous  organ,  to  which 


4S  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  sensory  nerves  convey  the  messages  of  the  senses,  and 
from  which  the  motor  nerves  carry  the  currents  causing 
muscular  contraction  and  movement.  The  involuntary  acts 
of  animals  are  like  our  own,  as  when  the  sleeping  dog  draws 
his  leg  back  if  it  is  touched,  much  as  his  master  would  do, 
and  when  awake,  both  man  and  beast  wink  when  a  finger 
pretends  to  strike  at  their  eyes.  If  we  go  on  to  voluntary 
actions,  done  with  conscious  will  and  thought,  the  lower 
creatures  can  for  some  distance  keep  company  with  man- 
kind. At  the  Zoological  Gardens  one  may  sometimes  see 
a  handful  of  nuts  divided  between  the  monkeys  inside  the 
bars  and  the  children  outside,  and  it  is  instructive  to  notice 
how  nearly  both  go  through  the  same  set  of  movements, 
looking,  approaching,  elbowing,  grasping,  cracking,  munch- 
ing, swallowing,  holding  out  their  hands  for  more.  Up  to 
this  level,  the  monkeys  show  all  the  mental  likeness  to  man 
that  their  bodily  likeness  would  lead  us  to  expect.  Now  we 
know  that  in  the  scramble,  there  passes  in  the  children's 
minds  a  great  deal  besides  the  mere  sight  and  feel  of 
the  nuts,  and  the  will  to  take  and  eat  them.  Between  the 
s^nisation  and  action  there  takes  place  thought.  To  describe 
it  simpl}',  the  boy  knows  a  nut  by  s'ght,  wishes  to  renew  the 
pleasant  taste  of  former  nuts,  and  directs  his  hands  and 
mouth  to  grasp,  crack,  and  eat.  But  here  are  complicated 
nuntal  processes.  Knowing  a  nut  by  sight,  or  having  an  idea 
of  a  nut,  means  that  there  are  grouped  together  in  the  child's 
mind  memories  of  a  number  of  past  sensations,  which  have 
so  become  connected  by  experience  that  a  particular  form 
and  colour,  feel  and  weight,  lead  to  the  expectation  of  a 
particular  flavour.  Of  what  here  takes  i)lace  in  the  boy's 
mind  we  can  judge,  though  by  no  means  clearly,  from  what 
we  know  about  our  own  thoughts  and  what  others  have  told 
us  about  theirs.     What  takes  place  in  the  monkeys'  minds 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  49 

we  can  only  guess  by  watching  their  actions,  but  these  are 
so  Uke  the  human  as  to  be  most  readily  explained  by  con- 
sidering their  brain-work  also  to  be  like  the  human,  though 
less  clear  and  perfect.  It  seems  as  though  a  beast's  idea  or 
thought  of  an  object  may  be,  as  our  own,  a  group  of  re- 
membered sensations  compa:ted  into  a  whole.  What  makes 
this  the  more  likely  is  that  when  part  of  the  sensations 
present  themselves,  the  animal  seems  to  judge  that  tlie  rest 
must  be  there  also,  much  as  we  ourselves  are  so  apt  to  do. 
Thus  a  dog  will  jump  upon  a  scum-covered  stream  which  it 
takes  for  dry  land,  or  when  offered  a  sham  biscuit  will  come 
for  it,  turning  away  when  smell  and  taste  prove  that  the  rest 
of  the  idea  does  not  agree  with  what  sight  suggested. 

In  much  the  same  way,  all  people  who  attend  to  the 
proceedings  of  animals,  account  for  them  by  faculties  more 
or  less  like  their  own.  Not  only  do  creatures  of  all  high 
orders  give  unmistakable  signs  of  pleasure  and  pain,  but 
our  dealings  with  the  brutes  go  on  the  ground  of  their 
sharing  with  us  such  more  complex  emotions  as  fear,  aftec- 
tion,  anger,  nay,  even  curiosity,  jealousy,  and  revenge.  Some 
of  these  show  themselves  in  bodily  symptoms  which  are 
quite  human,  as  every  one  must  admit  who  has  felt  the 
trembling  limbs  and  throbbing  heart  of  a  frightened  puppy, 
or  looked  at  the  picture  in  Darwin's  Expressmi  of  the 
Emotions  of  the  chimpanzee  who  has  had  his  fruit  taken 
from  him,  and  displays  his  sulkiness  by  a  pout  which  is  a 
caricature  of  a  child's.  Again,  the  lower  animals  show  a 
well-marked  will,  which  hke  man's  is  not  simply  wish,  but 
the  resultant  or  balance  of  wishes,  so  that  it  is  possible  for 
two  people  calling  a  dog  different  ways,  or  both  offering  him 
bones,  to  distract  his  will  in  a  way  that  reminds  us  of  the 
philosopher's  imaginary  ass  that  died  of  starvation  between 
its  hay  and  its  water.  As  to  the  power  of  memory  in  brutes, 
5 


50  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

we  have  all  had  opportunities  of  noticing  how  lasting  and 
exact  it  is.  Some  things  which  the  animals  remember  maybe 
explained  simply  by  their  ideas  becoming  associated  through 
habit,  as  when  the  horse  betrays  its  former  owner's  ways  by 
stopping  at  every  public-house  ;  this  may  only  mean  that 
the  familiar  door  suggests  to  the  beast  the  memory  of  rest, 
and  he  stops.  But  to  watch  a  dog  dreaming  makes  us 
think  that  whole  trains  of  ideas  from  the  storehouse  of 
memory  are  passing  before  his  consciousness,  as  in  our 
dreams.  A  memory  in  which  such  a  revival  of  the  past 
is  possible,  is  a  source  of  experience  whence  to  extract 
understanding  of  the  present,  and  foresight  of  the  future. 
To  make  the  memory  of  what  has  been,  the  means  of  con- 
trolling what  shall  be,  is  the  great  intellectual  faculty  in 
man,  and  in  simple  and  elementary  forms  it  comes  into 
view  among  lower  creatures.  To  tell  but  one  of  the  in- 
numerable animal  stories  which  show  expectation  and 
design  founded  on  experience.  A  certain  Mr.  Cops,  who 
had  a  young  orang-utan,  one  day  gave  it  half  an  orange, 
put  the  other  half  away  out  of  its  sight  on  a  high  press, 
and  lay  down  himself  on  the  sofa,  but  the  ape's  movements 
attracting  his  attention,  he  only  pretended  to  go  to  sleep  ; 
the  creature  came  cautiously  and  satisfied  himself  of  his 
master  being  asleep,  then  clinibed  up  the  press,  ate  the  rest 
of  the  orange,  carefully  hid  the  peel  among  some  shavings 
in  the  grate,  examined  the  pretended  sleeper  again,  and 
then  went  to  lie  down  on  his  own  bed.  Such  behaviour  is 
only  to  be  explained  by  a  train  of  thought  involving  some- 
thing of  what  in  ourselves  we  call  reason. 

To  measure  the  differences  between  beast  and  man  is 
really  more  difficult  than  tracing  their  resemblances.  One 
plain  mark  of  the  higher  intellectual  rank  of  man  is  that 
he  is  less  dependent  on  instinct   than  the   animals  which 


Il.J  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANIMALS.  51 

migrate  at  a  fixed  season,  or  build  nests  of  a  fixed  and 
complicated  pattern  peculiar  to  their  kind.  Man  has  some 
instincts  plainly  agreeing  with  those  of  inferior  animals, 
such  as  the  child's  untaught  movements  to  ward  off  danger, 
and  the  parental  affection  which  preserves  the  offspring 
during  the  first  defenceless  period  of  life.  But  if  man 
were  possessed  by  a  resistless  longing  to  set  off  wandering 
southward  before  winter,  or  to  build  a  shelter  of  boughs 
laid  in  a  particular  way,  this  would  be  less  beneficial  to  his 
species  than  the  use  of  intelligent  judgment  adapting  his 
actions  to  climate,  supply  of  food,  danger  from  enemies, 
and  a  multitude  of  circumstances  differing  from  district  to 
district,  and  changing  from  year  to  year.  If  man's  remote 
progenitors  had  instincts  like  the  beavers'  implanted  in  the 
very  structure  of  their  brain,  these  instincts  have  long  ago 
fallen  away,  displaced  by  freer  and  higher  reason.  Man's 
power  of  accommodating  himself  to  the  world  he  lives  in, 
and  even  of  controlling  it,  is  largely  due  to  his  faculty  of 
gaining  new  knowledge.  Yet  it  must  not  be  overlooked  that 
this  faculty  is  in  a  less  measure  possessed  by  other  animals. 
We  may  catch  them  in  the  act  of  learning  by  experience, 
which  is  indeed  one  of  the  most  curious  sights  in  natural 
history,  as  when  telegraph-wires  are  set  up  in  a  new  district, 
and  after  the  second  year  partridges  no  longer  kill  themselves 
by  flying  against  them,  or  where  in  Canada  the  wily  marten 
baffles  the  trappers  ingenuity,  finding  out  how  to  get  the  bait 
away,  even  from  a  new  kind  of  trap,  without  letting  it  fall. 
The  faculty  of  learning  by  imitation  comes  out  in  the  apes 
in  an  almost  human  way.  The  anthropoid  ape  Mafuka, 
kept  lately  in  the  Zoological  Gardens  at  Dresden,  saw  how 
the  door  of  her  cage  was  unlocked,  and  not  only  did  it 
herself,  but  even  stole  the  key  and  hid  it  under  her  arm 
for   future   use;    after  watching   the   carpenter   she   seized 


^ 


52  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

his  bradawl  and  bored  holes  with  it  through  the  little  table 
she  had  her  meals  on  ;  at  her  meals  she  not  only  filled  her 
own  cup  from  the  jug,  but,  what  is  more  remarkable,  she 
carefully  stopped  pouring  before  it  ran  over.  •  The  death  of 
this  ape  had  an  almost  human  pathos;  when  her  friend 
the  director  of  the  gardens  cam.e  to  her,  she  put  her  arms 
round  his  neck,  kissed  him  three  times,  and  then  lay  down 
on  her  bed  and  giving  him  her  hand  fell  into  her  last  sleep. 
One  cannot  but  think  that  creatures  so  sagacious  must  learn 
in  their  wild  state.  Indeed  less  clever  animals  seem  to  some 
extent  to  teach  their  young,  birds  to  sing,  wolves  to  hunt, 
although  it  is  most  difficult  for  naturalists  in  such  cases  to 
judge  what  comes  by  instinct  and  what  is  consciously  learnt. 
Philosophers  have  tried  to  draw  a  hard  and  fast  line 
between  the  animal  and  human  mind.  The  most  celebrated 
of  these  attempts  is  Locke's,  where  in  his  Essay  co7icerniiig 
Human  Uiidcrstatiding  he  lays  it  down  that  beasts  indeed 
have  ideas,  but  are  without  man's  faculty  of  forming  ab- 
stract or  general  ideas.  Now  it  is  true  that  we  have  learnt 
to  reason  with  abstract  ideas,  such  as  solidity  and  fluidity, 
quantity  and  quality,  vegetable  and  animal,  courage  and 
cowardice  ;  and  that  there  is  not  the  least  reason  to  suppose 
that  such  abstractions  are  formed  by  dogs  or  apes.  But 
though  the  faculty  of  thus  abstracting  and  generalising  is 
one  which  rises  to  the  highest  flights  of  philosophic  thought, 
it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  it  begins  in  easy  mental 
acts  which  seem  quite  possible  to  animals.  Abstraction  is 
noticing  what  several  thoughts  have  in  common,  and  neg- 
lecting their  differences  ;  thus  a  general  idea  is  obtained  by 
not  attending  too  closely  to  particulars.  The  simplest  form 
of  tins  is  when  only  one  sense  at  a  time  is  attended  to,  as 
in  Locke's  example  of  the  idea  of  whiteness,  as  being  that 
which  chalk,  snow,  and  milk,  agree  in.     But,  to  judge  by 


II.]  MAN  AND  OTHER  ANniALS.  53 

animals'  actions,  they  also  will  attend  to  one  sense  at  a 
time,  as  where  a  bull  is  excited  by  anything  red.  And 
it  is  most  interesting  to  watch  animals  comparing  a  new 
object  with  their  recollections  or  ideas  of  previous  ones, 
I)ractically  recognising  in  it  what  is  already  familiar,  and 
expecting  it  to  behave  like  other  individuals  of  its  class. 
Cats  or  monkeys  do  not  require  to  be  shown  the  use  of  a 
fresh  rug  or  cushion,  when  it  is  at  all  like  the  old  one  it  is 
put  in  place  of,  and  the  "  dog  of  the  regiment  "  will  accept 
any  man  in  the  uniform  as  a  master,  whether  he  has  seen 
him  before  or  not.  Thus,  the  very  simplicity  of  animal 
thought  foreshadows  the  results  of  man's  higher  abstraction 
and  generalisation.  Let  us  now  read  a  few  lines  farther  in 
Locke,  and  we  shall  see  why  he  concludes  that  animals  have 
not  the  power  of  forming  abstract  ideas.  It  is,  he  says, 
because  they  have  no  use  of  words  or  other  general  signs. 
But  this  itself  is  an  easier  point  and  far  more  worth  arguing, 
than  the  hard  question  whether  brutes  have  abstract  ideas. 
In  fact  the  power  of  speech  gives  about  the  clearest 
distinction  that  can  be  drawn  between  the  action  of  mind 
in  beast  and  man.  It  is  far  more  satisfactory  than  another 
division  attempted  by  philosophers  who  lay  it  down  that 
while  other  animals  have  consciousness,  man  alone  has  self 
consciousness,  that  is,  he  not  only  feels  and  thinks,  but  is 
awar^  of  himself  as  feeling  and  thinking.  Man,  we  know, 
is  capable  of  this  self-consciousness,  which  is  cultivated  by 
his  being  able  to  talk  about  himself  as  he  does  about  other 
persons  ;  but  it  has  never  been  proved  that  animals,  who 
we  know  are  not  apt  to  mistake  their  own  bodies  foi 
anything  outside,  have  no  consciousness  of  themselves. 
When  we  study  the  rules  of  sign  making  and  language,  we 
really  have  some  means  of  contrasting  the  animals  with 
ourselves.     Evidently  it  is  by  means  of  language  that  the 


54  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

human  mind  has  been  able  to  work  out  and  mark  the  high 
abstract  ideas  we  deal  with  so  easily  ;  without  words,  how- 
could  we  have  reached  results  of  combined  and  compared 
thought  such  as  momentum,  plurality,  righteousness  ?  The 
great  mental  gap  between  us  and  the  animals  we  study  is  well 
measured  by  the  difference  between  their  feeble  beginnings 
in  calling  one  another  and  knowing  when  they  are  called, 
and  man's  capacity  for  perfect  speech.  It  is  not  merely 
that  the  highest  anthropoid  apes  have  no  speech  ;  they  have 
not  the  brain-organisation  enabling  them  to  acquire  even  its 
rudiments.  Man's  power  of  using  a  word,  or  even  a 
gesture,  as  the  symbol  of  a  thought  and  the  means  of  con- 
versing about  it,  is  one  of  the  points  where  we  most 
plainly  see  him  parting  company  with  all  lower  species,  and 
starting  on  his  career  of  conquest  through  higher  intellec- 
tual regions. 

In  the  comparison  of  man  with  other  animals  the 
standard  should  naturally  be  the  lowest  man,  or  savage. 
But  the  savage  is  possessed  of  human  reason  and  speech, 
while  his  brain-power,  though  it  has  not  of  itself  raised  him 
to  civilization,  enables  him  to  receive  more  or  less  of  the 
education  which  transforms  him  into  a  civilized  man.  To 
show  how  man  may  have  advanced  from  savagery  to  civiliza- 
tion is  a  reasonable  task,  worked  out  to  some  extent  in  the 
later  chapters  of  this  volume.  But  there  is  no  such  evidence 
available  for  crossing  the  mental  gulf  that  divides  the  lowest 
savage  from  the  highest  ape.  On  the  whole,  the  safest  con- 
clusion warranted  by  facts  is  that  the  mental  machinery  of 
the  lower  animals  is  roughly  similar  to  our  own,  up  to  a 
limit.  Beyond  this  limit  the  human  mind  opens  out  into 
wide  ranges  of  thought  and  feeling  which  the  beast-mind 
shows  no  sign  of  approaching.  If  we  consider  man's 
course  of  'life  from  birth   to  death,  we  see  that  it  is,  so  to 


II.]  MAN  AND   OTHER  ANIMALS.  55 

speak,  founded  on  functions  which  he  has  in  common  with 
lower  beings.  ]\Ian,  endowed  with  instinct  and  capable  of 
learning  by  experience,  drawn  by  pleasure  and  driven  by 
pain,  must  like  a  beast  maintain  his  life  by  food  and 
Sicep,  must  save  himself  by  flight,  or  fight  it  out  with 
his  foes,  must  propagate  his  species  and  care  for  the  next 
generation.  Upon  this  lower  framework  of  animal  life  is 
raised  the  wondrous  edifice  of  human  language,  science, 
art,  and  law, 


CHAPTER    ITT. 


RACES     OF     M  A  X  K  I  N  D. 


Differences  of  Race,  56 — Stature  and  Proportions,  56— Skull,  60 — 
Features,  62 — Colour,  66 — Hair,  71 — Constitution,  73 — Tempera- 
ment, 74 — Types  of  Races,  75 — Permanence,  80 — Mixture,  80 — 
Variation,  84 — Races  of  Mankind  classified,  87. 

In  the  first  chapter  something  has  been  already  said  as 
to  the  striking  distinctions  between  the  various  races  of 
man,  seen  in  looking  closely  at  the  African  negro,  the  Coolie 
of  India,  and  the  Chinese.  Even  among  Europeans,  the 
broad  contrast  between  the  fair  Dane  and  the  dark  Genoese 
is  recognised  by  all.  Some  further  comparison  has  now  to 
be  made  of  the  special  differences  between  race  and  race, 
though  the  reader  must  understand  that,  without  proper 
anatomical  examination,  such  comparison  can  only  be  slight 
and  imperfect  Anthropology  finds  race-differences  most 
clearly  in  stature  and  proportions  of  limbs,  conformation  of 
the  skull  and  the  brain  within,  characters  of  features,  skin, 
eyes,  and  hair,  peculiarities  of  constitution,  and  mental  and 
moral  temperament. 

In  comparing  races  as  to  their  stature,  we  concern  ourselves 
not  with  the  tallest  or  shortest  men  of  each  tribe,  but  with 
the  ordinary  or  average-sized  men  who  may  be  taken  as  fair 
representatives   of  their   whole    tribe.       The  difference  of 


CHAP.  III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  57 

general  stature  is  well  shown  where  a  tall  and  a  short  people 
come  together  in  one  district.  Thus  in  Australia  the  average 
English  colonist  of  'j  ft.  S  in.  looks  clear  over  the  heads  of 
the  5  ft.  4  in.  Cninese  labourers.  Still  more  in  Sweden 
does  the  Swede  of  5  ft.  7  in.  tower  over  the  stunted  Lapps, 
whose  average  measure  is  not  much  over  5  ft.  Among  the 
tallest  of  mankind  are  the  Patagonians,  who  seemed  a  race 
of  giants  to  the  Europeans  who  first  watched  them  striding 
along  their  cliffs  draped  in  their  skin  cloaks  •  it  was  even 
declared  that  the  heads  of  Magalhaens'  men  hardly  reached 
the  waist  of  the  first  Patagonian  they  met  Modern  travel- 
lers find,  on  measuring  them,  that  they  really  often  reach  6  ft. 
4in.,  their  mean  height  being  about  5  ft.  11  in. — three  or 
four  inches  taller  than  average  Englishmen.  The  shortest 
of  mankind  are  the  Bushmen  and  related  tribes  in  South 
Africa,  with  an  average  height  not  far  exceeding  4  ft.  6  in. 
A  fair  contrast  between  the  tallest  and  shortest  races  of 
mankind  may  be  seen  in  Fig.  8,  where  a  Patagonian  is 
drawn  side  by  side  with  a  Bushman,  whose  head  only 
reaches  to  his  breast.  Thus  the  tallest  race  of  man  is  less 
than  one-fourth  higher  than  the  shortest,  a  fact  which  seems 
surprising  to  those  not  used  to  measurements.  Struck  by 
the  effect  of  such  difference  of  stature  one  is  apt  to  form 
an  exaggerated  notion  of  its  amount,  which  is  really 
small  compared  with  the  disproportion  in  size  between 
various  breeds  of  other  species  of  animals,  as  the  toy  pug 
and  the  mastiff,  or  the  Shetland  pony  and  the  dray-horse. 
In  general,  the  stature  of  the  women  of  any  race  may  be 
taken  as  about  one-sixteenth  less  than  that  of  the  men. 
Thus  in  England  a  man  of  5  ft,  Sin.  and  a  woman  of 
5ft  4  in.  look  an  ordinary  well-matched  couple. 

Not  only  the  stature,   but  the  proportions  of  the  body 
differ  in  men  of  various  races.     Care  must  be  taken  not  to 


58 


ANTHROPOLOGY, 


[chap. 


confuse  real  race-differences  with  the  alterations  made  by  the 
individual's  early  training  or  habit  of  life,  such  as  the  bow- 
legs of  grooms,  and  the  still  more  crooked  legs  of  the 
Indians  of  British  Columbia,  who  get  them  misshaped  by 
continually  sitting  cramped  up  in  their  canoes.      A  man's 


tiL,.  a.— Paragon.an  and  Bushmaa 


measure  round  the  chest  depends  a  good  deal  on  his  way  of 
life,  as  do  also  the  lengths  of  arm  and  leg,  which  are  not 
even  the  same  in  soldiers  and  sailors.  But  there  are  certain 
distinctions  which  are  inherited,  and  mark  different 
races.   Thus  there  are  long-limbed  and  short-limbed  tribes  of 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  59 

mankind.  The  African  negro  is  remarkable  for  length  of 
arm  and  leg,  the  Aymara  Indian  of  Peru  for  shortness.  Sup- 
posing an  ordinary  Englishman  to  be  altered  to  the  build 
of  a  negro,  he  would  want  2  in.  more  in  the  arm  and  i  in. 
more  in  the  leg,  while  to  bring  him  to  the  proportions  of 
an  Aymara  his  arm  Avould  have  to  be  shortened  ^  in.  and 
his  leg  1  in.  from  their  present  lengths.  An  instructive 
way  of  noticing  these  differences  is  to  look  back  to  the 
skeletons  of  apes  and  man  (Fig.  5).  In  an  upright 
position  and  reaching  down  with  the  middle  finger,  the 
gibbon  can  touch  its  foot,  the  orang  its  ankle,  the  chim- 
panzee its  knee,  while  man  only  reaches  partly  down  his 
thigh.  Here,  however,  there  seems  to  be  a  real  distinction 
among  the  races  of  man.  Negro  soldiers  standing  at  drill 
bring  .'he  middle  finger-tip  an  inch  or  two  nearer  the  knee 
than  white  men  can  do,  and  some  have  been  even  known  to 
touch  the  knee-pan.  Such  differences,  however,  are  less 
remarkable  than  the  general  correspondence  in  bodily  pro- 
portions of  a  model  of  strength  and  beauty,  to  whatever  race 
he  may  belong.  Even  good  judges  have  been  led  to  forget 
the  niceties  of  race-type  and  to  treat  the  form  of  the  athle.e 
as  everywhere  one  and  the  same.  Thus  Benjamin  West,  the 
American  painter,  when  he  came  to  Rome  and  saw  the 
Belvedere  Apollo,  exclaimed,  "  It  is  a  young  Mohawk 
warrior  ! "  Much  the  same  has  been  said  of  the  proportions 
of  Zulu  athletes.  Yet  if  fairly-chosen  photographs  of  Kafirs 
be  compared  with  a  classic  model  such  as  the  Apollo,  it  will 
be  noticed  that  the  trunk  of  the  African  has  a  somewhat 
w-all-sided  straightness,  wanting  in  the  inward  slope  which 
gives  fineness  to  the  waist,  and  in  the  expansion  below 
which  gives  breadth  across  the  hips,  these  being  two 
of  the  most  noticeable  points  in  the  classic  model  which 
our  painters  recognise  as  an  ideal  of  manly  beauty.      By  this 


6o  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

kind  of  comparison  much  may  be  done  in  distinguishing 
standard  t\'pcs  of  races.  Yet,  while  acknowledging  the 
reality  of  such  varieties  in  the  build  of  men  of  different  race, 
we  have  again  to  remark  how  slight  they  are  compared  with 
the  variation  in  the  limbs  of  different  breeds  of  lovver  animals. 

In  comparing  races,  one  of  the  first  questions  that  occurs 
is  whether  people  who  differ  so  much  intellectually  as 
savage  tribes  and  civilized  nations,  show  any  corresponding 
difference  in  their  brain.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  considerable 
difference.  The  most  usual  way  of  ascertaining  the  quantity 
of  brain  is  to  measure  the  capacity  of  the  brain-case  by 
filling  skulls  with  shot  or  seed.  Professor  Flower  gives  as 
a  mean  estimate  of  the  contents  of  skulls  in  cubic  inches, 
Australian,  seventy-nine ;  African,  eighty-five ;  European, 
ninety-one.  Eminent  anatomists  also  think  that  the  brain  of 
the  European  is  somewhat  more  comi)Icx  in  its  convolutions 
than  the  brain  of  a  Negro  or  Hottentot.  Thus,  though  these 
observations  are  far  from  perfect,  they  show  a  connexion 
between  a  more  full  and  intricate  system  of  brain-cells  and 
fibres,  and  a  higher  intellectual  power,  in  the  races  which 
have  risen  in  the  scale  of  civilization. 

The  form  of  the  skull  itself,  so  important  in  its  relation 
to  the  brain  within  and  the  expressive  features  without,  has 
been  to  the  anatomist  one  of  the  best  means  of  distin- 
guishing races.  It  is  often  possible  to  tell  by  inspection  of 
a  skull  what  race  it  belongs  to.  The  narrow  cranium  of  the 
negro  (Fig.  ()a)  would  not  be  mistaken  for  the  broad 
cranium  of  the  Samoyed  (Fig.  9^.)  On  taking  down  from 
a  museum  shelf  a  certain  narrow,  wall-sided,  roof-topped, 
forward-jawed  skull  with  unusually  strong  brow-ridges  (Fig. 
lo^O,  there  is  no  difficulty  in  recognising  it  as  Australian. 
In  comparing  skulls,  some  of  the  most  easily  noticeable 
distinctions  arc  the  following. 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


6i 


When  looked  at  from  the  vertical  or  top  view,  the  pro- 
portion of  breadth  to  length  is  seen  as  in  Fig.  9.  Taking 
the  diameter  from  back  to  front  as  100,  the  cross  diameter 
gives  the  so-called  index  of  breadth,  which  is  here  about 
70  in  the  Negro  {a),  80  in  the  European  (/>),  and  85  in 
the  Samoyed  {c).  Such  skulls  are  classed  respectively  as 
dolichokephalic,  or  "  long-headed  ;  "  Diesokephalic,  or  "  middle- 
headed  ;  "  and  bracJiykephalic,  or  "  short-headed."  A  model 
skull  of  a  flexible  material  like  gutta-percha,  if  of  the  middle 


Fig.  9 — Top  view  of  skulls,     a,  Negro,   index  70,  dolicholcephaKc ;  h.  European, 
index  80,  mesokephalic ;  c,  Samoyed,  index  85,  brachykephalic. 


shape,  like  that  of  an  ordinary  Englishman,  might,  by  pres- 
sure at  the  sides,  be  made  long  like  a  negro's,  or  by  pressure 
at  back  and  front  be  brought  to  the  broad  Tatar  form.  In 
the  above  figure  it  may  be  noticed  that  while  some  skulls, 
as  b,  have  a  somewhat  elliptical  form,  others,  as  a,  are  ovoid, 
having  the  longest  cross  diameter  considerably  behind  the 
centre.  Also  in  some  classes  of  skulls,  as  in  a,  the  zygo- 
matic arches  connecting  the  skull  and  face  are  fully  seen ; 
while  in  others,  as  b  and  c,  the  bulging  of  the  skull  almost 
hides  them.  In  the  front  and  back  view  of  skulls,  the  pro- 
portion of  width  to  height  is  taken  in  much  the  same  way 


62 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


as  the  index  of  breadth  just  described.  Next>  Fig.  lo, 
which  represents  in  profile  the  skulls  of  an  Australian  [d), 
a  negro  {e),  and  an  Englishman  (/),  shows  the  strong 
difference  in  the  facial  angle  between  the  two  lower  races 
and  our  own.  The  Australian  and  African  are  prognathous, 
or  "  forward- jawed,"  while  the  European  is  orthogimthous, 
or  "  upright-jawed."  At  the  same  time  the  Australian  and 
African  have  more  retreating  foreheads  than  the  European, 


Fig. 


-Side  view  of  skulls,     d,  Australian,  prognathous;  f,  African,  prognathous; 
/  European,  orthognathous. 


to  the  disadvantage  of  the  frontal  lobes  of  their  brain  as 
compared  with  ours.  Thus  the  upper  and  lower  parts  of 
the  profile  combine  to  give  the  faces  of  these  less-civilized 
peoples  a  somewhat  ape-like  slope,  as  distinguished  from 
the  more  nearly  upright  European  face. 

Not  to  go  into  nicer  distinctions  of  cranial  measurement, 
let  us  now  glance  at  the  evident  points  of  the  living  face. 
To  some  extent   feature  directly  follows  the  shape  of  the 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


63 


skull  beneath.  Thus  the  contrast  just  mentioned,  between 
the  forward-sloping  negro  skull  and  its  more  upright  form 
in  the  white  race,  is  as  plainly  seen  in  the  portraits  of  a 
Swaheli  negro  and  a  Persian,  given  in  Fig.  11.  On  looking 
at  the  female  portraits  in  Fig.  13,  the  Barolong  girl  (South 
Africa)  may  be  selected  as  an  example  of  the  effect  of 
narrowness  of  skull  (b),  in  contrast  with  the  broader  Tatar, 
and  North  American  faces  {d,  f).  She  also  shows  the 
convex    African    forehead,   wliile    they,    as    well    as    the 


Fig.  II. — a,  Swaheli  ;  b,  Persian. 


Hottentot  (r),  show  the  effect  of  high  cheek-bones.  The 
Tatar  and  Japanese  faces  id.,  e)  show  the  skew-eyelids  of  the 
Mongolian  race.  Much  of  the  character  of  the  human  face 
depends  on  the  shape  of  the  softer  parts — nose,  lips,  cheeks, 
chin,  &c.,  which  are  often  excellent  marks  to  distinguish  race. 
Contrasts  in  the  form  of  nose  may  even  exceed  that  here 
shown  between  the  aquiline  of  the  Persian  and  the  snub 
of  the  Negro  in  Figs.  11  and  13.  European  travellers 
in   Tartary  in    the  middle    ages    described  its    flat-nosed 


Fig.  12.— Female  portraits.    «.  Neprro  (W.  Africa)  •*  Rarnl^^     /■c    a  r  •     » 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


65 


inhabitants  as  having  no  noses  at  all,  but  breathing 
through  holes  in  their  faces.  By  pushing  the  tips  of  our 
own  noses  upward,  we  can  in  some  degree  imitate  the 
manner  in  which  various  other  races,  notably  the  negro, 
show  the  opening  of  the  nostrils  in  full  face.  Our  thin, 
close-fitting   lips,  differ  in  the  extreme  from    those  of  the 


Fig.  13. — African  negro. 


negro,  well  seen  in  the  portrait  (Fig.  13)  of  Jacob  Wain- 
wright,  Livingstone's  faithful  boy.  We  cannot  imitate  the 
negro  lip  by  mere  pouting,  but  must  push  the  edges  up 
and  down  with  the  fingers  to  show  more  of  the  inner  lip. 
The  expression  of  the  human  face,  on  which  intelligence 
and  feeling  write  themselves  in  visible  characters,  requires 
an  artist's  training  to  understand  and  describe.  The  mere 
6 


66 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


contour  of  the  features,  as  taken  by  photography  in  an 
unchanging  attitude,  has  deUcate  characters  which  we  ap- 
preciate by  long  experience  in  studying  faces,  but  which 
elude  exact  description  or  measurement.  With  the  purpose 
of  calling  attention  to  some  well-marked  peculiarities  of  the 
human  face  in  different  races,  a  small  group  of  female  faces 
(Fig.  12)  is  here  given,  all  young,  and  such  as  would  be 
considered  among  their  own  people  as  at  least  moderately 


Fig   14. — Section  of  negro  skin,  much  magnified  (after  KiJlllker).     a,  Jerinis,  or  true 
sk.n;  b,  c,  rete  mucosum  ;  d,  epidermis,  or  sccirf-^kiu. 


handsome.  Setting  aside  hair  and  complexion,  there  is 
still  enough  difference  in  the  actual  outline  of  the  features 
to  distinguish  the  Negro,  Kafir,  Hottentot,  Tatar,  Japanese, 
and  North  American  faces  from  the  English  face  below. 

The  colour  of  the  skin,  that  important  mark  of  race,  may 
be  best  understood  by  looking  at  the  darkest  variety.  The 
dark  hue  of  the  negro  does  not  lie  so  deep  as  the  innermost 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  67 

or  true  skin,  which  is  substantially  alike  among  all  races  of 
mankind.  The  seat  of  the  colouring  is  well  shown  in  Fig. 
14,  a  highly  magnified  section  of  the  skin  of  a  negro.  Here 
a  shows  the  surface  of  the  true  skin  with  its  papillae ;  this  is 
covered  by  the  mucous  layer,  the  innermost  cells  of  which 
{!>)  are  deeply  coloured  by  small  grains  of  black  or  brown 
pigment,  the  colour  shading  down  to  brownish  or  yellowish 
toward  the  outer  surface  of  this  mucous  layer  {c),  while  even 
the  outside  scarf-skin  {d)  is  slightly  tinged.  The  negro,  in 
spite  of  his  name,  is  not  black,  but  deep  brown,  and  even 
this  darkest  hue  does  not  appear  at  the  beginning  of  life, 
for  the  new-born  negro  child  is  reddish  brown,  soon  becom- 
ing slaty  grey,  and  then  darkening.  Nor  does  the  darkest 
tint  ever  extend  over  the  negro's  whole  body,  but  his  soles 
and  palms  are  brown.  When  Blumenbach,  the  anthropolo- 
gist, saw  Kemble  play  Othello  (made  up  in  the  usual  way, 
with  blackened  face  and  black  gloves,  to  represent  a  negro) 
he  complained  that  the  whole  illusion  was  spoilt  for  him 
when  the  actor  opened  his  hands.  The  brown  races,  such 
as  the  native  Americans,  have  the  colouring  of  the  skin  in 
.  a  less  degree  than  the  Africans,  and  with  them  also  it  is  not 
till  some  time  after  birth  that  the  full  depth  of  complexion 
is  reached.  The  colouring  of  the  dark  races  appears  to  be 
similar  in  nature  to  the  temporary  freckling  and  sun-burning 
of  the  fair  white  race.  Also,  Europeans  have  permanent 
dark  colouring  in  some  portions  of  the  skin,  though  not  ex- 
posed to  the  sun  ;  the  areola  of  the  breast,  for  instance  ; 
while  in  certain  affections,  known  by  the  medical  name  of 
melanism,  patches  closely  resembling  negro  skin  appear  on 
the  body.  On  the  whole  it  seems  that  the  distinction  of 
colour,  from  the  fairest  Englishman  to  the  darkest  African, 
has  no  hard  and  fast  lines,  but  varies  gradually  from  one 
tint  to  another.     It  is  instructive  to  notice  that  there  occur 


68  ANTHROrOLOCY.  [chap. 

in  the  various  races  certain  individuals  in  whom  the  colour- 
ing matter  of  the  skin  is  wanting,  the  so-called  albinos.  The 
contrast  between  their  morbid  whiteness  and  any  ordinary 
fairness  of  complexion  is  most  remarkable  in  the  negro 
albinos  (to  call  them  by  this  self-contradictory  term),  who 
have  the  well-known  African  features,  but  in  dead  white,  as 
it  were  a  cast  of  a  negro  in  plaster. 

The  natural  hue  of  skin  farthest  from  that  of  the  negro 
is  the  complexion  of  the  fair  race  of  Northern  Europe,  of 
Avhich  perfect  types  are  to  be  met  with  in  Scandinavia, 
North  Germany,  and  England.  In  such  fair  or  blonde 
people  the  almost  transparent  skin  has  its  pink  tinge  by 
showing  the  small  blood-vessels  through  it.  In  the  nations 
of  Southern  Europe,  such  as  Italians  and  Spaniards,  the 
browner  complexion  to  some  extent  hides  this  red,  which 
among  darker  peoples  in  other  quarters  of  the  world  ceases 
to  be  discernible.  Thus  the  difference  between  light  and 
dark  races  is  well  observed  in  their  blushing,  which  is 
caused  by  the  rush  of  hot  red  blood  into  the  vessels  near 
the  surface  of  the  body.  Albinos  shovvs  this  with  the 
utmost  intenseness,  not  only  a  general  glow  appearing,  but 
the  patches  of  colour  being  clearly  marked  out.  The  blush, 
vivid  through  the  blonde  skin  of  the  Dane,  is  more  ob- 
scurely seen  in  the  Spanish  brunette  ;  but  in  the  dark- 
brown  Peruvian,  or  the  yet  blacker  African,  though  a  hand 
or  a  thermometer  put  to  the  cheek  will  detect  the  blush  by 
its  heat,  the  somewhat  increased  depth  of  colour  is  hardly 
perceptible  to  the  eye.  The  contrary  effect,  paleness,  caused 
by  retreat  of  blood  from  the  surface,  is  in  like  manner 
masked  by  dark  tints  of  skin. 

As  a  character  of  race,  the  colour  of  the  skin  has  from 
ancient  times  been  reckoned  the  most  distinctive  of  all. 
The  Egyptian  painters,  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  69 

used  regular  tints  for  this  purpose,  as  may  be  seen  in  paint- 
ings at  the  British  Museum.  These  colours  do  not  pretend 
to  be  exact,  as  is  seen  by  the  native  Egyptian  gentlemen 
being  painted  dark  brick-red,  but  the  ladies  pale  yellow,  so 
as  to  signify  in  an  exaggerated  way  their  lighter  complexion. 
It  was  in  this  conventional  manner  that  they  coloured  the  four 
principal  races  of  mankind  known  to  them,  the  Egyptians 
themselves  red-brown,  the  nations  of  Palestine  yellow-brown, 
the  Libyans  yellow-white,  and  the  /Ethiopians  coal-black  (see 
page  4).  In  the  history  of  the  world,  colour  has  often  been 
the  sign  by  which  nations  accounting  themselves  the  nobler 
have  marked  off  their  inferiors.  The  Sanskrit  word  for  caste 
is  varna,  that  is,  "  colour ; "  and  this  shows  how  their  distinc- 
tion of  high  and  low  caste  arose.  India  was  inhabited  by 
dark  indigenous  peoples  before  the  fairer  Aryan  race  in- 
vaded the  land,  and  the  descendants  of  conquerors  and 
conquered  are  still  in  some  measure  to  be  traced  among  the 
light-complexioned  high-caste,  and  the  dark-complexioned 
low-caste  families.  Nor  has  the  distinction  of  colour  ceased 
in  the  midst  of  modern  civilization.  The  Englishman's 
white  skin  is  to  him,  as  of  old,  a  caste-mark  of  separation 
from  the  yellow,  brown,  or  black  "  natives,"  as  he  con- 
temptuously calls  them,  in  other  quarters  of  the  globe. 

The  range  of  complexion  among  mankind,  beginning  with 
the  tint  of  the  fair-whites  of  Northern  Europe  and  the  dark- 
whites  of  Southern  Europe,  passes  to  the  brownish-yellow 
of  the  Malays,  and  the  full-brown  of  American  tribes,  the 
deep-brown  of  Australians,  and  the  black-brown  of  Negros. 
Until  modern  times  these  race-tints  have  generally  been 
described  with  too  little  care,  and  named  as  conventionally 
as  the  Egyptians  painted  them.  Now,  however,  the  traveller 
by  using  Broca's  set  of  pattern  colours,  records  the  colour 
of  any  tribe  he  is  observing,  with  the  accuracy  of  a  mercer 


70  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap, 

matching  a  piece  of  silk.  The  evaporation  from  the  human 
skin  is  accompanied  by  a  smeU  which  differs  in  different 
races.  The  pecuHar  rancid  scent  by  which  the  African 
negro  may  be  detected  even  at  a  distance  is  the  most 
marked  of  these.  The  odour  of  the  brown  American  tribes 
is  again  different,  while  they  have  been  known  to  express 
dislike  at  the  white  man's  smell.  This  peculiarity,  which 
not  only  indicates  difference  in  the  secretions  of  the  skin, 
but  seems  connected  with  liability  to  certain  fevers,  Sec,  is 
a  race-character  of  some  importance. 

The  part  of  the  human  body  which  shows  the  greatest 
variety  of  colour  in  different  individuals,  is  the  iris  of  the 
eye.  This  is  the  more  noticeable  because  the  adjacent 
parts  vary  particularly  little  among  mankind.  The  sclerotic 
coat,  which  in  a  healthy  European  is  almost  what  it  is 
called,  the  "  white  "  of  the  eye,  only  takes  a  slightly  yellow 
tinge  among  the  darkest  races,  as  the  African  negro.  Again, 
in  ordinary  eyes  of  all  races,  the  pupil  in  the  centre  of  the 
iris  appears  absolutely  black,  being  in  fact  transparent,  and 
showing  through  to  the  black  pigment  lining  the  choroid 
coat  at  the  back  of  the  eye.  But  the  iris  itself,  if  examined 
in  a  number  of  types  of  men,  has  most  various  colour.  In 
understanding  the  coloration  of  the  eye,  as  of  the  skin,  the 
peculiarities  of  albinos  are  instructive.  The  pink  of  their 
eyes  (as  of  white  rabbits)  is  caused  by  absence  of  the  black 
pigment  above-mentioned,  so  that  light  passing  out  through 
the  iris  and  pupil  is  tinged  red  from  the  blood-vessels  at 
the  back ;  thus  their  eyes  may  be  seen  to  blush  with  the 
rest  of  the  face.  This  want  of  the  protecting  black  pig- 
ment also  accounts  for  the  sensitiveness  to  light  which 
makes  albinos  avoid  a  glare  ;  it  was  for  this  reason  that  the 
Dutch  gave  them  the  name  oi  kakkerlakoi,  or  "cockroaches," 
these  creatures  also  shunning  the  light.     Prof   Broca,   in 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  •  71 

his  scale  of  colours  of  eyes,  arranges  shades  of  orange, 
green,  blue,  and  violet- grey.  But  one  has  only  to  look 
closely  into  any  eye  to  see  the  impossibility  of  recording  its 
complex  pattern  of  colours  ;  indeed  what  is  done  is  to 
observe  it  from  a  distance  so  that  its  tints  blend  into  one 
uniform  hue.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  what  are  popu- 
larly called  black  eyes  are  far  from  having  the  iris  really 
black  like  the  pupil ;  eyes  described  as  black  are  commonly 
of  the  deepest  shades  of  brown  or  violet.  These  so-called 
black  eyes  are  by  far  the  most  numerous  in  the  world, 
belonging  not  only  to  brown-black,  brown,  and  yellow  races, 
but  even  prevailing  among  the  darker  varieties  of  the  white 
race,  such  as  Greeks  and  Spaniards.  Aristotle  remarks 
that  the  colour  of  the  eyes  follows  that  of  the  skin.  Indeed 
it  is  plain  that  there  is  a  connection  of  the  colours  of  the 
skin,  eyes,  and  hair  among  mankind.  In  races  with  the 
darker  skin  and  black  hair,  the  darkest  eyes  generally  pre- 
vail, while  a  fair  complexion  is  usually  accompanied  by 
the  lighter  tints  of  iris,  especially  blue.  A  fair  Saxon  with 
black  eyes,  or  a  full-grown  negro  with  pale  blue  eyes,  would 
be  looked  at  with  surprise.  Yet  we  know  by  our  own  coun- 
try-people how  difficult  it  is  to  lay  down  exact  rules  as  to 
matching  colours  in  complexion.  Thus  the  combination  of 
black  hair  with  dark  blue  or  grey  eyes  is  frequent  in  some 
districts  of  Great  Britain.  Dr.  Barnard  Davis  and  Dr. 
Beddoe  think  it  indicates  Keltic  blood. 

From  ancient  times,  the  colour  and  form  of  the  hair  have 
been  noticed  as  distinctive  marks  of  race.  Thus  Strabo 
mentions  the  Ethiopians  as  black  men  with  woolly  hair, 
and  Tacitus  describes  the  German  warriors  of  his  day  with 
their  fierce  blue  eyes  and  tawny  hair.  As  to  colour  of 
hair,  the  most  usual  is  black,  or  shades  so  dark  as  to  be 
taken  for  black,  which  belongs  not  only  to  the  dark-skinned 


72  •  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Africans  and  Americans,  but  to  the  yellow  Chinese  and  the 
dark-whites  such  as  Hindus  or  Jews.  Mr.  Sorby  remarks 
that  blackness  of  hair  is  due  to  black  pigment  being  present 
in  such  quantity  as  to  overpower  whatever  red  or  yellow 
pigment  the  hair  may  also  contain.  In  the  fliir-white 
peoples  of  Northern  Europe,  on  the  contrary,  flaxen  or 
chestnut  hair  prevails.  Thus  we  see  that  there  is  a  connec- 
tion between  fair  hair  and  fair  skin,  and  dark  hair  and  dark 
skin.  But  it  is  impossible  to  lay  down  a  rule  for  interme- 
diate tints,  for  the  red-brown  or  auburn  hair  common  in  fair- 
skinned  peoples  occurs  among  darker  races,  and  dark-brown 
hair  has  a  still  wider  range.  Our  own  extremely  mixed 
nation  shows  every  variety  from  flaxen  and  golden  to  rav'en 
black.  As  to  the  form  of  the  hair,  its  well-known  differences 
may  be  seen  in  the  female  portraits  in  Fig.  12,  where  the 
Africans  on  the  left  show  the  woolly  or  frizzy  kind,  where 
the  hair  naturally  curls  into  little  corkscrew-spirals,  while  the 
Asiatic  and  American  heads  on  the  right  have  straight  hair 
like  a  horse's  mane.  Between  these  extreme  kinds  are  the 
flowing  or  wavy  hair,  and  the  curly  hair  which  winds  in 
large  spirals  ;  the  English  hair  in  the  figure  is  rather  of 
the  latter  variety.  If  cross  sections  of  single  hairs  are 
examined  under  the  microscope,  their  differences  of  form 
are  seen  as  in  four  of  the  sections  by  Pruner-Bey  (Fig.  15). 
The  almost  circular  Mongolian  hair  (a)  hangs  straight  ;  the 
more  curly  European  hair  {l>)  has  an  oval  or  elliptical  sec- 
tion ;  the  woolly  African  hair  (c)  is  more  flattened  ;  while 
the  frizzy  Papuan  hair  {d)  is  a  yet  more  extreme  example 
of  the  flattened  ribbon-like  kind.  Curly  and  woolly  hair 
has  a  lop-sided  growth  from  the  root  which  gives  the 
twist.  Not  only  the  colour  and  form  of  tlie  hair,  but 
its  quantity,  vary  in  different  races.  Thus  the  heads  of 
the  Bushmen  are  more  scantily  furnished  with  hair   than 


lil.J  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  73 

ours,  while  among  the  Crow  Indians  it  was  common  for 
the  warrior's  coarse  black  hair  to  sweep  on  the  ground 
behind  him.  The  body-hair  also  is  scanty  in  some  races 
and  plentiful  in  others.  Thus  the  Ainos,  the  indigenes  of 
Yeso,  are  a  shaggy  people,  while  the  Japanese  possessors  of 
their  island  are  comparatively  hairless.  So  strong  is  the 
contrast,  that  the  Japanese  have  invented  a  legend  that  in 
ancient  times  the  Aino  mothers  suckled  young  bears,  which 
gradually  developed  into,  men. 

That  certain  races  are  constitutionally  fit  and  others 
unfit  for  certain  climates,  is  a  fact  which  the  English 
have  but  too  good  reason  to  know,  when  on  the  scorch- 
ing plains  of  India  they  themselves  become  languid   and 


Fig.  15. — Sections  of  hair,  highly  magnified  (after  Primer),  a,  Japanese  ;  6,  German  ; 
c,  African  negro  ;  d,  Papuan. 


sickly,  while  their  children  have  soon  to  be  removed 
to  some  cooler  climate  that  they  may  not  pine  and  die. 
It  is  well-known  also  that  races  are  not  affected  alike 
by  certain  diseases.  While  in  Equatorial  Africa  or  the 
West  Indies  the  coast-fever  and  yellow-fever  are  so  fatal 
or  injurious  to  the  new-come  Europeans,  the  negros  and 
even  mulattos  are  almost  untouched  by  this  scourge  of 
the  white  nations.  On  the  other  hand,  we  English  look 
upon  measles  as  a  trifling  complaint,  and  hear  with  astonish- 
ment of  its  being  carried  into  Fiji,  and  there,  aggravated  no 
doubt  by  improper  treatment,  sweeping  away  the  natives  by 
thousands.     It  is  plain  that    nations  moving   into    a    new 


74  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

climate,  if  they  are  to  flourish,  must  become  adapted  in 
body  to  the  new  state  of  hfe ;  thus  in  the  rarefied  air 
of  the  high  Andes  more  respiration  is  required  than 
in  the  plains,  and  in  fact  tribes  living  there  have  the 
chest  and  lungs  developed  to  extraojdinary  size.  Races, 
though  capable  of  gradual  acclimatization,  must  not  change 
too  suddenly  the  climate*  they  are  adapted  to.  With 
this  adaptation  to  particular  climates  tlie  complexion 
has  much  to  do,  fitting  the  negro  for  the  tropics  and 
the  fair-white  for  the  temperate  zone  ;  though,  indeed, 
colour  does  not  always  vary  with  climate,  as  where  in 
America  the  brown  race  extends  through  hot  and  cold 
regions  alike.  Fitness  for  a  special  climate,  being  matter 
of  life  or  death  to  a  race,  must  be  reckoned  among  the 
chief  of  race-characters. 

Travellers  notice  striking  distinctions  in  the  temper  of 
races.  There  seems  no  difference  of  condition  between  the 
native  Indian  and  the  African  negro  in  Brazil  to  make 
the  brown  man  dull  and  sullen,  while  the  black  is  over- 
flowing  with  eagerness  and  gaiety.  So,  in  Europe,  the  un- 
likeness  between  the  melancholy  Russian  peasant  and  the 
vivacious  Italian  can  hardly  depend  altogether  on  climate 
and  food  and  government.  -There  seems  to  be  in  mankind 
inbred  temperament  and  inbred  capacity  of  mind.  History 
points  the  great  lesson  that  some  races  have  marched  on 
in  civilization  while  others  have  stood  still  or  fallen  back, 
and  we  should  partly  look  for  an  explanation  of  this  in 
differences  of  intellectual  and  moral  powers  between  such 
tribes  as  the  native  Americans  and  Africans,  and  the  Old 
World  nations  who  overmatch  and  subdue  them.  In  mea- 
suring the  minds  of  the  lower  races,  a  good  test  is  how  far 
their  children  are  able  to  take  a  civilized  education.  The 
account  generally  given  by  European  teachers  who  have 


III.]  RACES  OF  ^lANKIND.  75 

had  the  children  of  lower  races  in  their  schools  is  that, 
though  these  often  learn  as  well  as  the  white  children  up  to 
about  twelve  years  old,  they  then  fall  off,  and  are  left  behind 
by  the  children  of  the  ruling  race.  This  fits  with  what 
anatomy  teaches  of  the  less  development  of  brain  in  the 
Australian  and  African  than  in  the  European.  It  agrees 
also  with  what  the  history  of  civilization  teaches,  that  up  to 
a  certain  point  savages  and  barbarians  are  like  what  our 
ancestors  were  and  our  peasants  still  are,  but  from  this 
common  level  the  superior  intellect  of  the  progressive 
races  has  raised  their  nations  to  heights  of  culture.  The 
white  man,  though  now  dominant  over  the  world,  must 
remember  that  intellectual  progress  has  been  by  no  means 
the  monopoly  of  his  race.  At  the  dawn  of  history,  the 
leaders  of  culture  were  the  brown  Egyptians,  and  the 
Babylonians,  whose  Akkadian  is  not  connected  with  the 
language  of  white  nations,  while  the  yellow  Chinese,  whose 
Tatar  affinity  is  evident  in  their  hair  and  features,  have  been 
for  four  thousand  years  or  more  a  civilized  and  literary  nation. 
The  dark-whites,  Assyrians,  Phcenicians,  Persians,  Greeks, 
Romans,  did  not  start  but  carried  on  the  forward  move- 
ment of  culture,  while  since  then  the  fair-whites,  as  part 
of  the  population  of  France,  Germany,  and  England,  have 
taken  their  share  not  meanly  though  latest  in  the  world's 
progress. 

After  thus  noticing  some  of  the  chief  points  of  difference 
among  races,  it  will  be  well  to  examine  more  closely  what 
a  race  is.  Single  portraits  of  men  and  women  can  only  in 
a  general  way  represent  the  nation  they  belong  to,  for  no 
two  of  its  individuals  are  really  alike,  not  even  brothers. 
What  is  looked  for  in  such  a  race  portrait  is  the  general 
character  belonging  to  the  whole  race.  It  is  an  often 
repeated  observation  of  travellers  that  a  European  landing 


76  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

among  some  people  unlike  his  own,  such  as  Chinese  or 
Mexican  Indians,  at  first  thinks  them  all  alike.  After  days  of 
careful  observation  he  makes  out  their  individual  peculiari- 
ties, but  at  first  his  attention  was  occupied  with  the  broad 
typical  characters  of  the  foreign  race.  It  is  just  this  broad 
type  that  the  anthropologist  desires  to  sketch  and  describe, 
and  he  selects  as  his  examples  such  portraits  of  men  and 
women  as  show  it  best.  It  is  even  possible  to  measure  the 
type  of  a  people.  To  give  an  idea  of  the  working  of  this 
problem,  let  us  suppose  ourselves  to  be  examining  Scotch- 
men, and  the  first  point  to  be  settled  how  tall  they  are. 
Obviously  there  are  some  few  as  short  as  Lapps,  and  some 
as    tall   as    Patagonians;    these   very   short    and   tall   men 


DWARFS  AVERAGE  MEN  CI  ANTS 

SFT  a  /« 

Fig.  i6. — Race  or  PopulatLon  arranged  by  Stature  (Galton's  method). 


belong  to  the  race,  and  yet  are  not  its  ordinary  members. 
If,  however,  the  whole  population  were  measured  and  made 
to  stand  in  order  of  height,  there  would  be  a  crowd  of  men 
about  five  feet  eight  inches,  but  much  fewer  of  either  five 
feet  four  inches  or  six  feet,  and  so  on  till  the  nnmbers 
decreased  on  either  side  to  one  or  two  giants,  and  one  or 
two  dwarfs.  This  is  seen  in  Fig.  i6,  where  each  indi- 
vidual is  represented  by  a  dot,  and  the  dots  representing 
men  of  the  mean  or  typical  stature  crowd  into  a  mass. 
After  looking  at  this,  the  reader  will  more  easily  understand 
Quetelel's  diagram,  Fig.  17,  where  the  heights  or  ordinates 
of  the  binomial  curve  show  the  numbers  of  men  of  each 


in.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


stature,  decreasing  both  ways  from  the  central  five  feet  eiglit 
inches  which  is  the  stature  of  the  mean  or  typical  man. 
Here,  in  a  total  of  near  2,600  men,  there  are  160  of  five 
feet  eight  inches,  but  only  about  150  of  five  feet  seven 
inches  or  five  feet  nine  inches,  and  so  on,  till  not  even  ten 
men  are  found  so  short  as  five  feet  or  so  tall  as  six  feet  four 
inches.  As  the  proverb  says,  "  it  takes  all  sorts  to  make  a 
world,"  so  it  thus  appears  that  a  race  is  a  body  of  people 
comprising  a  regular  set  of  variations,  which  centre  round 
one  representative  type.  In  the  same  way  a  race  or  nation 
is  estimated    as    to   other   characters,   as    where   a    mean 


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Fig.  17. — Race  or  Population  arranged  by  Stature  (Quetelet's  method). 


or  typical  Englishman  may  be  said  to  measure  36  inches 
round  the  chest,  and  weigh  about  144  pounds.  So  it  is 
possible  to  fix  on  the  typical  shade  of  complexion  in  a 
nation,  such  as  the  Zulu  black-brown.  The  result  of  these 
plans  is  to  show  that  the  rough-and-ready  method  of 
the  traveller  is  fairly  accurate,  when  he  chooses  as  his 
representative  of  a  race  the  type  of  man  and  woman 
which  he  finds  to  exist  more  numerously  than  any 
other. 


78 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


Fig-  18— Caribs. 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


79 


The  people  whom  it  is  easiest  to  represent  by  single 
portraits  are  unciviUsed  tribes,  in  whose  food  and  way  of 
life  there  is  little  to  cause  difference  between  one  man  and 
another,  and  who  have  lived  together  and  intermarried  for 
many  generations.  Thus  Fig.  i8,  taken  from  a  photograph 
of  a  party  of  Caribs,  is  remarkable  for  the  close  likeness 
running  through  all.  In  such  a  nation  the  race-type  is 
peculiarly  easy  to  make  out.  It  is  by  no  means  always  thus 
easy  to  represent  a  whole  population.     To  see  how  difficult 


\- 


Fig.  19. — (a)  Head  of  Rameses  II  .  Ancient  Egypt.    (I)  Sheikh's  son,  Modern 
•t^Sypt-     (After  Hartinann.) 


it  may  be,  one  has  only  to  look  at  an  Englisli  crowd,  with 
its  endless  diversity.  But  to  get  a  view  of  the  problem 
of  human  varieties,  it  is  best  to  attend  to  the  simplest 
cases    first,    looking    at    some    uniform    and   well-marked 


8o  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

rrxe,  and  asking  what  in  tlie  course  of  a^es  may  happen 
to  it. 

The  first  thing  to  be  noticed  is  its  power  of  lasting. 
"Where  a  people  lives  on  in  its  own  district,  without  too 
much  change  in  habits,  or  mixture  with  other  nations,  there 
seems  no  reason  to  expect  its  type  to  alter.  The  Egyptian 
monuments  show  good  instances  of  this  permanence.  In 
Fig.  ig,  a  is  drawn  from  the  head  of  a  statue  of  Rameses, 
evidently  a  careful  portrait,  and  dating  from  about  3,000 
years  ago,  while  l>  is  an  Egyptian  of  the  present  day, 
yet  the  ancient  and  modern  are  curiously  alike.  Indeed, 
the  ancient  Egyptian  race,  who  built  the  Pyramids,  and 
whose  life  of  toil  is  pictured  on  the  walls  of  the  tombs, 
are  with  little  change  still  represented  by  the  fellahs  of  the 
villages,  who  carry  on  the  old  labour  under  new  tax-gatherers. 
Thus,  too,  the  Ethiopians  on  the  early  Egyptian  bas-reliefs 
may  have  their  counterparts  picked  out  still  among  the 
White  Nile  tribes,  while  we  recognise  in  the  figures  of 
Phoenician  or  Israelite  captives  the  familiar  Jewish  profile 
of  our  own  day.  Thus  there  is  proof  that  a  race  may  keep 
its  special  characters  plainly  recognizable  for  over  thirty 
centuries,  or  a  hundred  generations.  And  this  permanence 
of  type  may  more  or  less  remain  when  the  race  migrates 
far  from  its  early  home,  as  when  African  negroes  are 
carried  into  America,  or  Israelites  naturalize  themselves 
from  Archangel  to  Singapore.  Where  marked  change  has 
taken  place  in  the  appearance  of  a  nation,  the  cause  of  this 
change  must  be  sought  in  intermarriage  with  foreigners,  or 
altered  conditions  of  life,  or  both. 

The  result  of  intermarriage  or  crossing  of  races  is  familiar 
to  all  English  people  in  one  of  its  most  conspicuous  examples, 
the  cross  between  white  and  negro  called  mulatto  (Spanish 
vnilato,  from  mula,  a  mule).     The  mulatto  complexion  and 


III.] 


RACES  OF   MANKIND. 


8i 


hair  are  intermediate  between  those  of  the  parents,  and 
new  intermediate  grades  of  complexion  appear  in  the 
children  of  white  and  mulatto,  called  quadroon  or  quarter- 
blood  (Spanish  niarfcro/i),  and  so  on  ;  on  the  other  hand,  the 
descendants  of  negro  and  mulatto,  called  sambo  (Spanish 
zambo)  return  towards  the  full  negro  type.  This  intermediate 


Fig.  20. — Malay  Mother  and  Half-caste  Daughters. 

character  is  the  general  nature  of  crossed  races,  but  with 
more  or  less  tendency  to  revert  to  one  or  other  of  the  parent 
types.  To  illustrate  this,  Fig.  20  gives  the  portrait  of  a 
Malay  mother  and  her  half-caste  daughters,  the  father  being 
a  Spaniard  ;  here,  while  all  the  children  show  their  mixed 
race,  it  is  sometimes  the  European  and  sometimes  the 
7 


82  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Malay  cast  of  features  that  prevails.  The  effect  of  mixture 
is  also  traceable  in  the  hair,  as  may  often  be  well  noticed  in 
a  mulatto's  crimped,  curly  locks,  between  the  straighter 
European  and  the  woolly  African  kind.  The  Cafusos  of 
Brazil,  a  peculiar  cross  between  the  native  tribes  of  the  land 
and  the  imported  negro  slaves,  are  remarkable  for  their  hair, 
which  rises  in  a  curly  mass,  forming  a  natural  periwig  which 
obliges  the  wearers  to  stoop  low  in  passing  through  their  hut 
doors.     This  is  seen  in  the  portrait  of  a  Cafusa,  Fig.  21, 


and  seems  easily  accounted  for  by  the  long  stiff  hair  of  the 
native  American  having  acquired  in  some  degree  the  negro 
frizziness.  The  bodily  temperament  of  mixed  races  also 
partakes  of  the  parent-characters,  as  is  seen  in  the  mulatto 
who  inherits  from  his  negro  ancestry  the  power  of  bearing 
a  tropical  climate,  as  well  as  freedom  from  yellow  fever. 

Not  only  does  a  mixed  race  arise  wherever  two  races 
inhabit  the  same  district,  but  within  the  last  few  centuries 
it  is  well  known  that  a  large  fraction  of  the  world's  popula- 
tion   has   actually   come    into   existence    by   race-crossing. 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  83 

This  is  nowhere  so  evident  as  on  the  American  continent, 
where  since  the  Spanish  conquest  such  districts  as 
Mexico  are  largely  peopled  by  the  mestizo  descendants 
of  Spaniards  and  native  Americans,  while  the  importation 
of  African  slaves  in  the  West  Indies  has  given  rise  to 
a  mulatto  population.  By  taking  into  account  such  inter- 
crossing of  races,  anthropologists  have  a  reason  to  give  for 
the  endless  shades  of  diversity  among  mankind,  without 
attempting  the  hopeless  task  of  classifying  every  little 
uncertain  group  of  men  into  a  special  race.  The  water- 
carrier  from  Cairo,  in  Fig.  22,  may  serve  as  an  example  of 
the  difficulty  of  making  a  systematic  arrangement  to  set 
each  man  down  to  his  precise  race.  This  man  speaks 
Arabic,  and  is  a  Moslem,  but  he  is  not  an  Arab  proper, 
neither  is  he  an  Egyptian  of  the  old  kingdom,  but  the  child 
of  a  land  where  the  Nubian,  Copt,  Syrian,  Bedouin,  and 
many  other  peoples  have  mingled  for  ages,  and  in  fact  his 
ancestry  may  come  out  of  three  quarters  of  the  globe. 
Among  the  natives  of  India,  a  variety  of  complexion  and 
feature  is  found  which  cannot  be  classified  exactly  by  race. 
But  it  must  be  remembered  that  several  very  distinct 
varieties  of  men  have  contributed  to  the  population  of  the 
country,  namely  the  dark-brown  indigenes  or  hill-tribes, 
the  yellow  Mongolians  who  have  crossed  the  frontiers  from 
Tibet,  and  the  fairer  ancient  Aryans  or  Indo-Europeans 
who  poured  in  from  the  north-west ;  not  to  mention  others, 
the  mixture  of  these  nations  going  on  for  ages  has  of  course 
produced  numberless  crosses.  So  in  Europe,  taking  the 
fair  nations  of  the  Baltic  and  the  dark  nations  of  the 
Mediterranean  as  two  distinct  races  or  varieties,  their  inter- 
crossing may  explain  the  infinite  diversity  of  brown  hair 
and  intermediate  complexion  to  be  met  with.  If  then  it 
may  be  considered  that  man  was  already  divided  into  a  few 


84 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


great  main  races  in  remote  antiquity,  their  intermarriage 
through  ages  since  will  go  far  to  account  for  the  innumerable 
slighter  varieties  which  shade  into  one  another. 

It  is  not  enough  to  look  at  a  race  of  men  as  a  mere  body 


Fig. 


-Cairene. 


of  people  happening  to  have  a  common  type  or  likeness.  For 
the  reason  of  their  likeness  is  plain,  and  indeed  our  calling 
them  a  race  means  that  we  consider  them  a  breed  whose 
common  nature  is  inherited  from  common  ancestors.  Now 
experience  of  the  animal  world  shows  that  a  race  or  breed, 


in.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  85 

while  capable  of  carrying  on  its  likeness  from  generation  to 
generation,  is  also  capable  of  varying.  In  f.^ct,  the  skilful 
cattle-breeder,  by  carefully  choosing  and  pairing  individuals 
which  vary  in  a  particular  direction,  can  within  a  few  years 
form  a  special  breed  of  cattle  or  sheep.  Without  such  direct 
interference  of  man,  special  races  or  breeds  of  animals  form 
themselves  under  new  conditions  of  climate  and  food,  as  in 
the  familiar  instances  of  the  Shetland  ponies,  or  the  mustangs 
of  the  IMexican  plains  which  have  bred  from  the  horses 
brought  over  by  the  Spaniards.  It  naturally  suggests  itself 
that  the  races  of  man  may  be  thus  accounted  for  as  breeds, 
varied  from  one  original  stock.  It  may  be  strongly  argued 
in  this  direction  that  not  only  do  the  bodily  and  mental 
varieties  of  mankind  blend  gradually  into  one  another,  but 
that  even  the  most  dissimilar  races  can  intermarry  in  all 
directions,  producing  mixed  or  sub-races  which,  when  left 
to  themselves,  continue  their  own  kind.  Advocates  of  the 
polygenist  theory,  that  there  are  several  distinct  races  of 
man,  sprung  from  independent  origins,  have  denied  that 
certain  races,  such  as  the  English  and  native  Australians, 
produce  fertile  half-breeds.  But  the  evidence  tends  more 
and  more  to  establish  crossing  as  possible  between  all  races, 
which  goes  to  prove  that  all  the  varieties  of  mankind  are 
zoologically  of  one  species.  While  this  principle  seems  to 
rest  on  firm  ground,  it  must  be  admitted  that  our  knowledge 
of  the  manner  and  causes  of  race-variation  among  mankind  is 
still  very  imperfect.  The  great  races,  black,  brown,  yellow, 
white,  had  already  settled  into  their  well-known  characters 
before  written  record  began,  so  that  their  formation  is 
hidden  far  back  in  the  pra^-historic  period.  Nor  are 
alterations  of  such  amount  known  to  have  taken  place  in 
any  people  within  the  range  of  histor}'.  It  has  been 
plausibly  argued  that  our  rude  primitive  ancestors,  being 


86  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

less  able  than  tlieir  posterity  to  make  themselves  inde- 
pendent of  climate  by  shelter  and  fire  and  stores  of 
food,  were  more  exposed  to  alter  in  body  under  the  in- 
flaence  of  the  new  climates  they  migrated  into.  Even  in 
modern  times,  it  seems  possible  to  trace  something  of 
race-change  gomg  on  under  new  conditions  of  life.  Thus 
Dr.  Beddoe's  measurements  prove  that  in  England  the 
manufacturing  town-life  has  given  rise  to  a  population 
an  inch  or  two  less  in  stature  than  their  forefathers  when 
they  came  in  from  their  country  villages.  So  in  the  Rocky 
Mountains  there  are  clans  of  Snake  Indians  whose  stunted 
forms  and  low  features,  due  to  generations  of  needy  outcast 
life,  mark  them  off  from  their  better  nourished  kinsfolk  in 
the  plains.  It  is  asserted  that  the  pure  negro  in  the  United 
States  has  undergone  a  change  in  a  few  generations  which 
has  left  him  a  shade  lighter  in  complexion  and  altered  his 
features,  while  the  pure  white  in  the  same  region  has  be- 
come less  rosy,  with  darker  and  more  glossy  hair,  more 
prominent  cheek-bones  and  massive  lower  jaw.  These  are 
perhaps  the  best  authenticated  cases  of  race-change.  There 
IS  great  difficulty  in  watching  a  race  undergoing  variation, 
which  is  everywhere  masked  by  the  greater  changes  caused 
by  new  nations  coming  in  to  mingle  and  intermarry  with 
the  old.  He  who  should  argue  from  the  Greek  sculptures 
that  the  national  type  has  changed  since  the  age  of  Perikles, 
would  be  met  with  the  answer  that  the  remains  of  the  old 
stock  have  long  been  inextricably  blended  with  others. 
Tlie  points  which  have  now  been  brought  forward  will 
suffice  to  show  the  uncertainty  and  difficulty  of  any 
attempt  to  trace  exactly  the  origin  and  course  of  the  races 
of  man.  Yet  at  the  same  time  there  is  a  ground-work 
to  go  upon  in  the  fact  that  these  races  are  not  found 
spread  indiscriminately  over  the  earth's  surface,  but  certain 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  S; 

races  plainly  belong  to  certain  regions,  seeming  each  to 
have  taken  shape  under  the  influences  of  climate  and  soil 
in  its  proper  district,  where  it  flourished,  and  whence  it 
spread  far  and  wide,  modifying  itself  and  mingling  with 
other  races  as  it  went.  The  following  brief  sketch  may 
give  an  idea  how  the  spreading  and  mixture  of  the  great 
races  may  have  taken  place.  It  embodies  well-considered 
views  of  eminent  anatomists,  especially  Professors  Huxley 
and  Flower.  Though  such  a  scheme  cannot  be  presented 
as  proved  and  certain,  it  is  desirable  to  clear  and  fix  our 
ideas  by  understanding  that  man's  distribution  over  the 
earth  did  not  take  place  by  promiscuous  scattering  of  tribes, 
but  along  great  lines  of  movement  whose  regularity  can  be 
often  discerned,  where  it  cannot  be  precisely  followed  out. 

That  there  is  a  real  connexion  between  the  colour  of 
races  and  the  climate  they  belong  to,  seems  most  likely  from 
the  so-called  black  peoples.  Ancient  writers  were  satisfied 
to  account  for  the  colour  of  the  ^^thiopians  by  saying  that 
the  sun  had  burnt  them  black,  and  though  modern  anthro- 
pologists would  not  settle  the  question  in  this  off-hand  way, 
yet  the  map  of  the  world  shows  that  this  darkest  race-type 
is  principally  found  in  a  tropical  climate.  The  main  line 
of  black  races  stretches  along  the  hot  and  fertile  regions  of 
the  equator,  from  Guinea  in  West  Africa  to  that  great  island 
of  the  Eastern  Archipelago,  which  has  its  name  of  New 
Guinea  from  its  negro-like  natives.  In  a  former  geological 
period  an  equatorial  continent  (to  v.'hich  Sclater  has  given 
the  name  of  Lemuria)  may  even  have  stretched  across  from 
Africa  to  the  far  East,  uniting  these  now  separate  lands. 
The  attention  of  anthropologists  has  been  particularly 
attracted  by  a  line  of  islands  in  the  Sea  of  Bengal,  the 
Andamans,  which  might  have  been  part  of  this  former 
continent,  and  were  found  inhabited  by  a  scanty  population 


.",3 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


of  rude  and  childlike  savages.  These  Mincopis  (Fig.  23) 
are  small  in  stature  (the  men  under  five  feet),  with  skin  of 
blackness,  and  hair  very  flat  in  section  and  frizzled,  which 
from  their  habit  of  shaving  their  heads  must  be  imagined  by 
the  reader.   But  while  in  these  points  resembling  the  African 


--^-<^ 


F.G.  23. — Andaman  Islanders. 

negro,  they  are  unlike  him  in  having  skulls  not  narrow,  but 
broad  and  rounded,  nor  have  they  lips  so  full,  a  nose  so  wide, 
or  jaws  so  projecting  as  his.  It  has  occurred  to  anatomists, 
and  the  opinion  has  been  strengthened  by  Flower's  study 
of  their  skulls,  that  the  Andaman  tribes  may  be  a  remnant 
of  a  very  early  human  stock,  perhaps  the  best  representa- 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  89 

tives  of  the  primitive  negro  type  which  has  since  altered  in 
various  points   in  its  spread  o\er   its   wide   district   of  the 
world.     The  African  negro  race,  with  its  special  marks  of 
narrow    skull,    projecting    jaws,   black-brown    skin,   woolly 
hair,  flattened   nose,  full  and  out-turned  lips,  has  already- 
been   here    described    (see    pages  61    to    67).        Its    type 
perhaps    shows   itself    most    perfectly  in    the   nations  near 
the  equator,  as    in    Guinea,    but   it   spreads   far    and  wide 
over  the  continent,   shading    off   by  crossing    with    lighter 
coloured  races  on  its  borders,  such  as  the    Berbers  in   the 
north,  and   the    Arabs    on    the    east    coast.     As    the    race 
spreads  southward  into  Congo  and  the  Kafir  regions,  there  is 
noticed  a  less  full  negro  complexion  and  feature,  looking  as 
though  migration  from  the  central  region  into  new  climates 
had  somewhat  modified  the  type.    In  this  respect  the  small- 
grown  Hottentot-Bushman  tribes  of  South  Africa  (see  Figs. 
8,  12c)  are  most  remarkable,  for  while  keeping  much  negro 
character    in    the    narrow    skull,   frizzy  hair,  and    cast    of 
features,  their  sk'n  is  of  a  lighter  tint  of  brownish-yellow. 
There  is  nothing  to  suggest  that  this  came  by  crossing  the 
negro  type  with  a  fairer  race,  indeed  there  is  no  evidence 
of    such   a   race   to    cross   with.       If    the    Bushman   is   a 
special  modification  of  ihe  Negro,  then  this  is  an  excellent 
case  of  the    transformation    of  races  when   placed   under 
new  conditions.     To   return  now  to   Southern  Asia,  there 
are  found   in    the    Malay    Peninsula   and    the    Philippines 
scanty   forest-tribes   apparently   allied   to   the    Andamaners 
and  classed  under   the  general  term  Negritos    {i.e.    "  little 
blacks  "),  seeming  to  belong  to  a  race  once  widely  spread 
over  this  part   of    the  world,  whose  remnants   have  been 
driven  by  stronger  new  come  races  to   find    refuge   in   the 
mountains.     Fig.  24,  represents  one  of  them,  an  Aheta  from 
the  island   of  Luzon.      Lastly  come  the  wide-spread   and 


90 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


complicated  varieties  of  the  eastern  negro  race  in  the  region 
known  as  Melanesia,  the  "black  islands,"  extending  from 
New  Guinea  to  Fiji.  The  group  of  various  islanders  (Fig.  25) 
belonging  to  Bishop  Patteson's  mission,  shows  plainly  the 
resemblance  to  the  African  negro,  though  with  some  marked 
points   of  difference,  as  in  the  brows  being  more  strongly 


Fig.  24. — Aheta  (Negrito),  Phir>ppine  Islands. 

ridged,  and  the  nose  being  more  prominent,  even  aquiline — 
a  striking  contrast  to  the  African.  The  Melanesians  about 
New  Guinea  are  called  Papuas  from  their  woolly  hair  (Malay 
/(7/;c7C^/;=: frizzed),  Avhich  is  often  grown  into  enormous 
mops.  The  great  variety  of  colour  in  Melanesia,  from 
the  full  brown-black  down  to  chocolate  or  nut-brown,  shows 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


91 


that  there  has  been  much  crossing  with  lighter  populations. 
Such  mixture  is  evident  in  the  coast-people  of  Fiji,  where 
the  dark  Melanesian  race  is  indeed  predominant,  but  crossed 
with  the  lighter  Polynesian  race  to  which  much  of  the  lan- 
guage and  civilization  of  the  islands  belongs.  Lastly,  the 
Tasmanians  were  a  distant  outlying  population  belonging  to 
the  eastern  blacks. 


Fig.  25. — JMelanesians. 


In  Australia,  that  vast  i.sland-continent,  w-hose  plants  and 
animals  are  not  those  of  Asia,  but  seem  as  it  were  survivors 
from  a  long-past  period  of  the  earth's  history,  there  appears 
a  thin  population  of  roaming  savages,  strongly  distinct  from 
the  blacker  races  of  New  Guinea  at  the  north,  and  Tas- 
mania at  the  south.     The  Australians,   with  skin    of  dark 


92 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


93 


Fig.  28.— Australian  (Queensland)  women. 


chocolate-colour,  maybe  taken  as  a  special  type  of  the  brown 
races  of  man.  AV'hile  their  skull  is  narrow  and  prognathous 
like  the  negro's,  it  differs  from  it  in  special  points  which  have 


94 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


been  already  mentioned  (page  60),  and  has,  indeed,  pecu- 
liarities which  distinguish  it  very  certainly  from  that  of  other 
races.  In  the  portraits  of  Australians,  Figs.  26,  27,  28,  there 
may  be  noticed  the  heavy  brows  and  projecting  jaws,  the 
wide  but  not  flat  nose,  the  full  lips,  and  the  curly  but  not 
woolly  black  hair.     Looking  at  the  map  of  the  world  to  see 


FiG.  29. — Dravidian  lull  man  (  ifti.r  Fryer). 

where  brown  races  next  appear,  good  authorities  define 
one  on  the  continent  of  India.  There  the  hill-tribes  present 
the  type  of  the  old  dwellers  in  south  and  central  India  before 
the  conquest  by  the  Aryan  Hindus,  and  its  purest  form 
appears  in  tribes  hardly  tilling  the  soil,  but  living  a  wild 
lile  in  the  jungle,  while  the  great  mass,  more  mixed  in 
race   with   the    Hindus,  under  whose  influence  they   have 


m.)  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  ,  95 

been  for  ages,  now  form  the  great  Dravidian  nations  of 
the  south,  such  as  the  Tamil  and  Telugu.  Fig.  29  repre- 
sents one  of  the  ruder  Dravidians,  from  the  Travancore 
forests.     Farther  west,  it  has  been  thought  that  a  brown 


Fig.  30. — Kaliiiuk  (.itt'.r  Ooldsmid). 


race  may  be  distinguished  in  Africa,  taking  in  Nubian  tribes 
and  less  distinctly  traceable  in  the  Berbers  of  Algiers  and 
Tunis.    If  so,  to  this  race  the  ancient  Egyptians  would  seem 


96 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


mainly  to  belong,  though  mixed  with  Asiatics,  who  from 
remote  antiquity  came  in  over  the  Syrian  border.  The 
Egyptian  drawings  of  themselves  (as  in  Chaps.  IX.  to  XI.) 
require  the  eyes  to  be  put  in  profile  and  the  body  coloured 
reddish-brown  to  represent  the  race  to  us.  None  felt  more 
strongly  than  the  Egyptian  of  ancient  Thebes,  that  among 


Fig.  31. — Goldi  (Amur). 


the  chief  distinctions  between  the  races  of  mankind  were 
the  complexion  and  feature  which  separated  him  from  the 
yEthiopian  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  Assyrian  or  Israelite 
on  the  other. 

Turning  to  another  district  of  the  world,  the   Mongoloid 
type  of  man  has  its  best  marked  representatives  on  the  vast 


Ill] 


RACES  CF  ?^IAXKIXD. 


97 


steppes  of  northern  Asia.  Their  skin  is  brownish-yellow, 
their  hair  of  the  head  black,  coarse,  and  long,  but  face- 
hair  scanty.  Their  skull  is  characterized  by  breadth,  pro- 
jection of  cheek-bones,  and  forward  position  of  the  outer 


Fig.  32. — biaiuesc  acircsbes. 

edge  of  the  orbits,  ^vhich,  as  well  as  the  slightness  of 
brow-ridges,  the  slanting  aperture  of  the  eyes,  and  the 
snub-nose,  are  observable  in  Figs.  30  and  31,  and  in 
Fig.  \2  d.  The  Mongoloid  race  is  immense  in  range  and 
8 


93 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[ClIAP. 


numbers.  The  great  nations  of  south-east  Asia  show  their 
connexion  with  it  in  the  famiUar  complexion  and  features  of 
the  Chinese  and  Japanese.  Figs.  32,  ^;^,  34  are  portraits 
from  Siam,  Cochin-China,  and  Corca.  In  his  wide  migra- 
tions over  the  world,  the  Mongoloid,  through  change  of 
climate  and  life,  and  still  farther  by  intermarriage  with  other 
races,  loses  more  and  more  of  his  special  points.     It  is  so 


1 10  ^ 


in  the  south-east,  where  in  China  and  Japan  the  character- 
istic breadth  of  skull  is  lessened.  In  Europe,  where  from 
remotest  antiquity  hordes  of  Tatar  race  have  poured  in, 
their  descendants  have  often  preserved  in  their  languages, 
such  as  Hungarian  and  Finnish,  clearer  traces  of  their  Asiatic 
home  than  can  be  made  out  in  their  present  types  of  com- 
plexion and  feature.  Yet  the  Finns,  Figs.  35  and  36,  have 
not  lost  the  race-differences  which  mark  them  off  from  the 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


99 


Swedes  among  whom  they  dwell,  and  the  stunted  Lapps 
show  some  points  of  likeness  to  their  Siberian  kinsfolk, 
who  wander  like  them  with  their  reindeer  on  the  limits  of 
the  Arctic  regions. 


Fig.  34. — Coreans. 

In  pursuing  beyond  this  point  the  examination  of  the 
races  of  the  world,  the  problem  becomes  more  obscure. 
On  the  Malay  peninsula,  at  tlie  extreme  south-east  corner 
of  Asia,  appear    tl^e    first    members    of    the  Malay  race, 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


I02  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

seemingly  a  distant  branch  of  the  IVIongoloid,  which  spreads 
over  Sumatra,  Java,  and  otlier  islands  of  the  Eastern 
Archipelago.  Figs.  37  and  38  give  portraits  of  the  more 
civihsed  Malays,  while  Fig.  39  shows  the  Dayaks  of  Borneo, 
who  represent  the  race  in  a  wilder  and  perhaps  less  mixed 
state.  From  the  Malay  Archipelago  there  stretch  into  the 
Pacific  the  island  ranges  first  of  Micronesia  and  then  of 
Polynesia,  till  we  reach  Easter  Island  to  the  east  and  New 
Zealand  to  the  south.  The  IMicronesians  and  Polynesians 
show  connexion  with  the  Malays  in  language,  and  more  or 
less  in  bodily  make.  But  they  are  not  Malays  proper,  and 
there  are  seen  among  them  high  faces,  narrow  noses,  and 
small  mouths  which  remind  us  of  the  European  face,  as  in 
the  Micronesian,  Fig.  40,  who  stands  here  to  represent  this 
varied  group  of  peoples.  The  Maoris  are  still  further  from 
being  pure  Malays,  as  is  seen  by  their  more  cm"ly  hair,  often 
prominent  and  even  aquiline  noses.  It  seems  likely  that  an 
Asiatic  race  closely  allied  to  Malays  may  have  spread  over 
the  South  Sea  Islands,  altering  their  special  type  by 
crossing  with  the  dark  Melanesians,  so  that  now  the 
populations  of  different  island  groups  often  vary  much 
in  appearance.  This  race  of  sailors  even  found  their 
way  to  Madagascar,  where  their  descendants  have  more  or 
less  blended  with  a  population  from  the  continent  of  Africa. 
Turning  now  to  the  double  continent  of  America,  we  find 
in  this  New  World  a  problem  of  race  remarkably  diff'erent 
from  that  of  the  Old  World.  The  traveller  who  should 
cross  the  earth  from  Nova  Zemlya  to  the  Cape  of  Good 
Hope  or  Van  Diemen's  Land  would  find  in  its  various 
climates  various  strongly-marked  kinds  of  men,  white, 
yellow,  brown,  and  black.  But  if  Columbus  had  surveyed 
America  -from  the  Arctic  to  the  Antarctic  regions,  he 
would    have    found    no    such    extreme    unlikeness   in    the 


Ill  J 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


103 


i'la.  39, — Dayaks. 


I04 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


inhabitants.      Apart   from  the  Europeans  and  Africans  who 
have    poured    ia    since   the   fifteenth    century,    the    native 


Fig   40  — KmgsmiU  Islander. 

Americans  in  general  might  be,  as  has  often  been  said,  of 
one  race.  Not  that  they  are  all  alike,  but  their  differences 
in  stature,  form  of  skull,   feature,  and  complexion,  thougli 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  loj 

considcrablj,  seem  variations  of  a  secondary  kind.  It  is 
not  as  if  several  races  had  formed  each  its  proper  type  iu 
its  proper  region,  but  as  if  the  country  had  been  peopled  by 
migrating  tribes  of  a  ready-made  race,  who  had  only  to 
spread  and  acclimatise  themselves  over  both  tropical  and 
temperate  zones,  much  as  the  European  horses  have  done 
since  the  time  of  Columbus,  and  less  perfectly  the  white 
men  themselves.  The  race  to  which  most  anthropologists 
refer  the  native  Americans  is  the  Mongoloid  of  East  Asia, 
who  are  capable  of  accommodating  themselves  to  the  ex- 
tremest  climates,  and  who  by  the  form  of  skull,  the  light- 
brown  skin,  straight  black  hair,  and  black  eyes,  show  con- 
siderable agreement  with  the  American  tribes.  Figs.  41 
and  42  represent  the  wild  hunting-tribes  of  North  America 
in  one  of  the  finest  forms  now  existing,  the  Colorado 
Indians,  while  in  Fig.  43  the  Cauixana  Indians  may  stand 
as  examples  of  the  rude  and  sluggish  forest-men  of  Brazil. 
While  tribes  of  America  and  Asia  may  thus  be  of  one 
original  stock,  we  must  look  cautiously  at  theories  as  to 
the  ocean  and  island  routes  by  which  Asiatics  may  have 
migrated  to  people  the  New  World.  It  is  probable  that 
man  had  appeared  there,  as  in  the  Old  World,  in  an 
earlier  geological  period  than  the  present,  so  that  the  fir^t 
kinship  between  the  Mongols  and  the  North  American 
Indians  may  go  back  to  a  time  when  there  was  no  ocean 
between  them.  What  looks  like  later  communication  be- 
tween the  two  continents,  is  that  the  stunted  Eskimo  with 
their  narrow  roof-topped  skulls  may  be  a  branch  of  the 
Japanese  stock,  while  there  are  signs  of  the  comparatively 
civilized  Mexicans  and  Peruvians  having  in  some  way 
received  arts  and  ideas  from  Asiatic  nations. 

We  come  last  to  the  white  men,  whose  nations  have  all 
through   history  been  growing   more   and   more  dominant 


io6 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


Fig.  41. — Colorado  Indian  (Nor;h  America). 


intellectually,  morally,  and  politically  on  the  earth.  Though 
commonly  spoken  of  as  one  variety  of  mankind,  it  is  plain 
that  they  are  not  a  single  uniform  race,  but  a  varied  and 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


107 


Fig.  42. — Colorado  Indian  (Xorih  America). 


mixed  population.  It  is  a  step  toward  classing  them  to 
separate  them  into  two  great  divisions,  the  dark-whites  and 
fair-whites  (melanochroi,  xanthochroi).      Ancient   portraits 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 


i'u;.  43. — Cauixana  Indians  (South  America), 

have  come  down  to  us  of  tlie  dark-white  nations,  as  Assy- 
rians,   Phoenicians,   Persians,  Greeks,  Romans  ;   and  when 


III.]  RACES  OF  MANKIND.  109 

beside  these  are  placed  moderns  sucli  as  the  Andahisians, 
and  the  dark  Welshmen  or  Bretons,  and  people  from  the 
Caucasus,  it  will  be  evident  that  the  resemblance  running 
through  all  these  can  only  be  in  broad  and  general  charac- 
ters. They  have  a  dusky  or  brownish-white  skin,  black  or 
deep  brown  eyes,  black  hair,  mostly  wavy  or  curly ;  their 
skulls  vary  much  in  proportions,  though  seldom  extremely 
broad  or  narrow,  while  the  profile  is  upright,  the  nose 
straight  or  aquiline,  the  lips  less  full  than  in  other  races. 
Rather  for  form's  sake  than  for  a  real  type  of  the  dark- whites, 
a  group  of  Georgians  are  shown  in  Fig.  44.  Opposite  them 
Fig.  45,  a  group  of  Swedes,  somewhat  better  represents  the 
fair-whites,  whose  transparent  skin,  flaxen  hair,  and  bluj 
eyes  may  be  seen  as  well,  though  not  as  often,  in  England 
as  in  Scandinavia  or  North  Germany.  The  earliest  recorded 
appearance  of  fair-whites  may  be  in  the  paintings  where 
Egyptian  artists  represent  with  yellowish-white  skin  and 
blue  eyes  certain  natives  of  North  Africa,  a  district  where 
remnants  of  blonde  tribes  are  still  known.  These  fair 
Libyans,  as  well  as  the  fair  red-haired  people  who  appear 
about  Syria,  and  are  known  to  us  as  forming  a  type  among 
the  Jews,  may  perhaps  be  connected  in  race  with  the  fair 
nations  who  were  already  settled  over  the  north  of  Europe 
when  the  classic  writers  begin  to  give  accounts  of  its  barbar- 
ous inhabitants,  from  the  Goths  northward  to  the  dwellers  in 
Thule.  The  intermarriage  of  the  dark  and  fair  varieties 
which  has  gone  on  since  these  early  times,  has  resulted  in 
numberless  varieties  of  brown -haired  people,  between  fair 
and  dark  in  complexion.  But  as  to  the  origin  and  first  home 
of  the  fair  and  dark  races  themselves,  it  is  hard  to  form  an 
opinion.  Language  does  much  toward  tracing  the  early 
history  of  the  white  nations,  but  it  does  not  clear  up  the 
difficulty  of  separating  fair-whites  from  dark-whites.     Both 


no 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


sorts  have  been  living  united  by  national  language,  as  at  this 
day  German  is  spoken  by  the  fair  Hanoverian  and  the  darker 
Austrian.  Among  Keltic  people,  the  Scotch  Highlanders 
often  remind  us  of  the  tall  red-haired  Gauls  described  in 
classical  history,  but  there  are  also  passages  which   prove 


Fig.  44. — Georgians. 


that  smaller  darker  Kelts  like  the  modern  Welsh  and 
Bretons  existed  then  as  well.  As  a  help  in  clearing  up  this 
problem,  which  so  affects  our  own  ancestry,  Huxley  suggests 
that  the  fair-whites  were  the  original- stock,  and  that  these 
crossing  with  the  brown  races  of  the  far  south  may  have 


III.] 


RACES  OF  MANKIND. 


Ill 


given  rise  to  the  various  kinds  of  dark-whites.  However 
this  may  be,  such  mixture  of  the  white  and  brown  races 
seems  indeed  to  have  largely  formed  the  population  of 
countries  Avhere  they  meet.  The  Moors  of  North  Africa, 
and  many  so-called  Arabs  \vho  are  darker  than  w-hite  men, 


Fig.  45. — Swedes. 


may  be  thus  accounted  for.  It  is  thus  that  in  India 
millions  who  speak  Hindu  languages  show  by  their  tint  that 
their 'race  is  mixed  between  that  of  the  Aryan  conquerors 
of  the  land  and  its  darker  indigenes.  An  instructive  in- 
stance  of    this   very   combination   is    to   be    seen   in    the 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


Gypsies,  low-caste  wanderers  who  found  their  way  from 
India  and  spread  over  Europe  not  many  centuries  since. 
Fig.  46,  a  Gypsy  woman  from  Wallachia,  is  a  favourable 
type  of  these  latest  incomers  from  the  East,  whose  broken- 
down    Hindu   dialect   shows    that   part    of    their   ancestry 


Fig.  46.— Gypsy. 


comes  from  our  Aryan  forefathers,  while  their  complexion, 
swarthiest    in    the    population   of  our    country,   marks  also 
descent  belonging  to  a  darker  zone  of  the  human  species. 
Thus  to  map  out  tlie  nations  of  the  world  among  a  few 


III.J  RACES  CF  MANKIND.  113 

main  varieties  of  man,  and  their  combinations,  is,  in  spite 
of  its  difficulty  and  uncertainty,  a  profitable  task.  But  to 
account  for  the  origin  of  these  great  primary  varieties  or 
races  themselves,  and  exactly  to  assign  to  them  their  earliest 
homes,  cannot  be  usefully  attempted  in  the  present  scan- 
tiness of  evidence.  If  man's  first  ajjpearance  was  in  a 
geological  period  when  the  distribution  of  land  and  sea 
and  the  climates  of  the  earth  were  not  as  now,  then  on 
both  sides  of  the  globe,  outside  the  present  tropical  zones, 
there  were  regions  whose  warmth  and  luxuriant  vegetation 
would  have  favoured  man's  life  with  least  need  of  civilized 
arts,  and  whence  successive  waves  of  population  may  have 
spread  over  cooler  climates.  It  may  perhaps  be  reasonable 
to  imagine  as  latest-formed  the  white  race  of  the  temperate 
region,  least  able  to  bear  extreme  heat  or  live  without  the 
appliances  of  culture,  but  gifted  with  the  powers  of  knowing 
and  ruling  which  give  them  sway  over  the  world. 


CHAPTER   IV. 


LANGUAGE. 


Sign -making,  114 — Gesture-language,  114 — Sound-gestures,  120 — Na- 
tural Language,  122 — Utterances  of  Animals,  122 — Emotional  and 
Imitative  Sounds  in  Language,  124 — Change  of  Sound  and  Sense, 
127 — Other  expression  of  Sense  by  Sound,  12S — Children's  Words, 
128 — Articulate  Language,  its  relation  to  Natural  Language,  129 — 
Origin  of  Language,  130. 

There  are  various  ways  in  which  men  can  communicate 
with  one  another.  They  can  make  gestures,  utter  ci'ies, 
speak  7uords,  dixdi.\v  pi'diitrs,  write  characters  or  letters.  These 
are  signs  of  various  sorts,  and  to  understand  how  they  do 
their  work,  let  us  begin  by  looking  at  such  signs  as  are 
most  simple  and  natural. 

When  for  any  reason  people  cannot  talk  together  by  word 
of  mouth,  they  take  to  conversing  by  gestures,  in  what  is 
called  dumb  show  or  pantomime.  Every  reader  of  this  has 
been  able  from  childhood  to  carry  on  conversation  in  this 
way,  more  or  less  cleverly.  Imagine  a  simple  case.  A  boy 
opens  the  parlour  door,  his  brother  sitting  there  beckons  to 
him  to  be  quiet  for  his  father  is  asleep ;  the  boy  now  inti- 
mates by  signs  that  he  has  come  for  the  key  of  the  box,  to 
which  his  brother  answers  by  other  signs  tliat  it  is  in  the 


CH.  IV.]  LANGUAGE.  115 

pocket  of  his  coat  hanging  in  the  hall,  concluding  with  a 
significant  gesture  to  be  otf  and  shut  the  door  quietly  after 
him.  This  is  the  gesture-language  as  we  all  know  how  to  use 
it.  But  to  see  what  a  full  and  exact  means  of  communica- 
tion it  may  be  worked  up  to,  it  should  be  watched  in  use 
among  the  deaf-and-dumb,  who  have  to  depend  so  much 
upon  it.  To  give  an  idea  how  far  gestures  can  be  made  to 
do  the  work  of  spoken  words,  the  signs  may  be  described 
in  which  a  deaf-and-dumb  man  once  told  a  child's  story  in 
presence  of  the  writer  of  this  account.  He  began  Dy 
moving  his  hand,  palm  down,  about  a  yard  from  the 
ground,  as  we  do  to  show  the  height  of  a  child — this 
meant  that  it  was  a  child  he  was  thinking  of  Then  he 
tied  an  imaginary  pair  of  bonnet-strings  under  his  chin  (his 
usual  sign  for  female),  to  make  it  understood  that  the  child 
was  a  little  girl.  The  child's  mother  was  then  brought  on 
the  scene  in  a  similar  way.  She  beckons  to  the  child  and 
gives  her  twopence,  these  being  indicated  by  pretending  to 
drop  two  coins  from  one  hand  into  the  other ;  if  there  had 
been  any  doubt  as  to  whether  they  were  copper  or  silver 
coins,  this  would  have  been  settled  by  pointing  to  some- 
thing brown,  or  even  by  one's  contemptuous  way  of  handling 
coppers  which  at  once  distinguishes  them  from  silver.  The 
mother  also  gives  the  child  a  jar,  shown  by  sketching  its 
shape  with  the  forefingers  in  the  air,  and  going  through  the 
act  of  handing  it  oven  Then  by  imitating  the  unmistake- 
able  kind  of  twist  with  which  one  turns  a  treacle-spoon,  it 
is  made  known  that  it  is  treacle  the  child  has  to  buy.  Next, 
a  wave  of  the  hand  shows  the  child  being  sent  off  on  her 
errand,  the  usual  sign  of  walking  being  added,  which  is 
made  by  two  fingers  walking  on  the  table.  Tlie  turning  of 
an  imaginary  door-handle  now  takes  us  into  the  shop,  where 
the  counter  is  shown  by  passing  the  flat  hands  as  it  were 


ii6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

over  it.  Behind  tliis  counter  a  figure  is  pointed  out  •  he  is 
shown  to  be  a  man  by  the  usual  sign  of  putting  one's  hand 
to  one's  chin  and  drawing  it  down  where  the  beard  is  or 
would  be ;  then  the  sign  of  tying  an  apron  round  one's 
waist  adds  the  information  that  tlie  man  is  the  shopman.  To 
him  the  child  gives  her  jar,  dropping  the  money  into  his 
hand,  and  moving  her  forefinger  as  if  taking  up  treacle,  to 
show  what  she  wants.  Then  we  see  the  jar  put  into  an 
imaginary  pair  of  scales  which  go  up  and  down  ;  the  great 
treacle-jar  is  brought  from  the  shelf  and  the  little  one  filled, 
with  the  proper  twist  to  take  up  the  last  trickling  thread  ; 
the  grocer  puts  the  two  coins  in  the  till,  and  the  little  girl 
sets  off  with  the  jar.  The  deaf-and-dumb  story-teller  went 
on  to  shoAv  in  pantomime  how  the  child,  looking  down 
at  the  jar,  saw  a  drop  of  treacle  on  the  rim,  wiped  it  off 
with  her  finger  and  put  the  finger  in  her  mouth,  how  she 
was  tempted  to  take  more,  how  her  mother  found  her  out 
by  the  spot  of  treacle  on  her  pinafore,  and  so  forth. 

The  student  anxious  to  master  the  principles  of  language 
will  find  this  gesture-talk  so  instructive,  that  it  will  be  well 
to  explain  its  working  more  closely.  The  signs  used  are  of 
two  kinds.  In  the  first  kind  things  actually  present  are 
shown.  Thus  if  the  deaf-mute  wants  to  mention  "  hand  " 
or  "  shoe,"  he  touches  his  own  hand  or  shoe.  Where  a 
speaking  man  would  say  '*'  I,"  "thou,"  "he,"  the  deaf-mute 
simply  points  to  himself  and  the  other  persons.  To  express 
"  red  "  or  "  blue  "  he  touches  the  inside  of  his  own  lip  or 
points  to  the  sky.  In  the  second  kind  of  signs  ideas  are 
conveyed  by  imitation.  Thus  pretending  to  drink  may 
mean  "water,"  or  "to  drink,"  or  "thirsty."  Laying  the 
cheek  on  the  hand  expresses  "sleep"  or  "bedtime."  A 
significant  jerk  of  the  whip-hand  suggests  cither  "  whi])  " 
or  "coachman,"  or  "to  drive,"  as  the  case  may  be.      A 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  117 

'•lucifer"  is  indicated  by  pretending  to  strike  a  match, 
and  "  candle  "  by  the  act  of  holding  up  the  forefinger  like  a 
candle  and  pretending  to  blow  it  out.  Also  in  the  gesture- 
language  the  symptoms  of  the  temper  one  is  in  may  be 
imitated,  and  so  become  signs  of  the  same  temper  in  others. 
Thus  the  act  of  shivering  becomes  an  expressive  sign  for 
"cold";  smiles  show  "joy,"  "approval,"  " goodness,"  while 
frowns  show  "anger,"  "disapproval,"  "badness."  It  might 
seem  that  such  various  meanings  to  one  sign  would  be 
confusing,  but  there  is  a  way  of  correcting  this,  for  when  a 
single  sign  does  not  make  the  meaning  clear,  others  are 
brought  in  to  supplement  it.  Thus  if  one  wants  to  express 
"  a  pen,"  it  may  not  be  sufficient  to  pretend  to  write  with 
one,  as  that  might  be  intended  for  "  writing  "  or  "  letter," 
but  if  one  then  pretends  to  wipe  and  hold  up  a  pen,  this 
will  make  it  plain  that  the  pen  itself  is  meant. 

Tlie  signs  hitherto  described  are  self-expressive,  that  i?, 
their  meaning  is  evident  on  the  face  cf  them,  or  at  any  rate 
may  be  made  out  by  a  stranger  who  watches  their  use.  Of 
such  self-expressive  or  natural  signs,  the  gesture-language 
mostly  consists  But  where  deaf-mutes  live  together,  there 
come  into  use  ^mong  them  signs  which  a  stranger  can 
hardly  make  out  until  it  is  explained  to  him  how  they  arose. 
They  will,  for  instance,  mention  one  another  by  nickname- 
signs,  as  when  a  boy  may  be  referred  to  by  the  sign  of 
sewing,  which  on  inquiry  proves  to  have  been  given  him 
because  his  father  was  a  tailor.  Such  signs  may  be  very 
far-fetched ;  for  instance,  at  the  Berlin  Deaf-and-dumb 
Institution,  the  sign  of  chopping  off"  a  head  means  a 
Frenchman,  and  on  inquiry  it  appears  that  the  children, 
struck  by  reading  of  the  death  of  Louis  XVI.  in  the 
history-book,  had  fixed  on  this  as  a  sign-name  for  the 
whole  nation.     But  to   any   new   child   who   learnt   these 


ii8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

signs  without  knowing  why  they  were  chosen,  they  would 
seem  artificial. 

Next  to  studying  the  gesture-language  among  the  deaf- 
and-dumb,  the  most  perfect  way  of  making  out  its  principles 
is  in  its  use  by  people  who  can  talk  but  do  not  understand 
one  another's  language.  Thus  the  celebrated  sign-languages 
of  the  American  prairies,  in  which  conversation  is  carried  on 
between  hunting-parties  of  whites  and  natives,  and  even  be- 
tween Indians  of  different  tribes,  are  only  dialects  (so  to 
speak)  of  the  gesture-language.  Thus  "water"  is  ex- 
pressed by  pretending  to  scoop  up  water  in  one's  hand  and 
drink  it,  "stag"  by  putting  one's  thumbs  to  one's  temples 
and  spreading  out  the  fingers.  There  is  a  great  deal  of 
variety  in  the  signs  among  particular  tribes,  but  such  a  way 
of  communication  is  so  natural  all  the  world  over,  that 
when  outlandish  people,  such  as  Laplanders,  have  been 
brought  to  be  exhibited  in  our  great  cities,  they  have  been 
comforted  in  their  loneliness  by  meeting  with  deaf-and- 
dumb  children,  with  whom  they  at  once  fell  to  conversing 
with  deHght  in  the  universal  language  of  signs.  Signs  to  be 
understood  in  this  way  must  be  of  the  natural  self-expressive 
sort.  Yet  here  also  there  are  some  which  a  stranger  might 
suppose  to  be  artificial,  till  he  learnt  that  they  are  old 
signs  which  have  lost  their  once  plain  intention.  Thus  a 
North  American  sign  for  "dog"  is  to  draw  one's  two  first 
fingers  along  like  poles  being  trailed  on  the  ground.  This 
seemingly  senseless  sign  really  belongs  to  the  days  when  the 
Indians  had  few  horses,  and  used  to  fasten  the  tent-poles 
on  the  dogs  to  be  dragged  from  place  to  place;  though 
the  dogs  no  longer  have  to  do  this,  custom  keeps  up 
the  sign. 

It  has  to  be  noticed  that  the  gesture-language  by  no 
means  matches,  sign  for  word,  with  our  spoken  language. 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  119 

One  reason  is   that   it   has   so   little  power   of  expressing 
abstract  ideas.     The  deaf-mute  can  show  particular  ways  of 
making  things,  such  as  building  a  wall  or  cutting  out  a  coat, 
but  it  is  quite  beyond  him  to  make  one  sign  include  what  is 
common  to  all  these,  as  we  use  the  abstract  term  to  "make." 
Even  "in"  and  "out"    must  be  expressed  in  some  such 
clumsy  way  as  by  pretending  to  put  the  thing  talked  of  in, 
and  take  it  out.     Next  let  us  compare  an  English  sentence 
with  the  signs  by  which  the  same  meaning  would  be  ex- 
pressed among  the  deaf-and  dumb.     It  will  at  once  be  seen 
that  many  words  we  use  have  no  signs  at  all  corresponding 
to  them.     Thus  when  we  should  say  in  words,   '■'■The  hat 
which  I  left  on  the  table  is  black,"  this  statement  can  be 
practically  conveyed  in  gestures,  and  there  will  be  signs  for 
what  we  may  call  the  "  real  "  words,  such  as  hat,  leave,  black. 
But  for  what   may  be   called  the    "  grammatical "    words, 
the,  which,  is,  there  will  be  no  signs,  for  the  gesture-language 
has  none.     Again,  grammars  lay  down  distinctions  between 
substantives,  adjectives,  and  verbs.     But  these  distinctions 
are  not  to  be  found  in  the  gesture-language,  where  pointing 
to  a  grass-plot  may  mean  "grass"   or  "green,"  and  pre- 
tendipg  to  warm  one's  hands  may  suggest  "warm"   or  "to 
warm    oneself,"  or   even  "  fireplace."      Nor  (unless  where 
artificial  signs  have  been  brought  in  by  teachers)  is  there 
anything   in  the  gesture-language  to  correspond  with  the 
inflexions  of  words,  such  as  distinguish  goest  from  go,  him 
from  he,  doimiin  from  domiis.     What  is  done  is  to  call  up  a 
picture  in  the  minds  of  the  spectators  by  first  setting  up 
something   to   be  thought  about,  and  then  adding  to    or 
acting  on  it  till  the  whole  story  is  told.     If  the  signs  do  not 
follow  in  such  order  as  to  carry  meaning  as  they  go,  the 
looker-on  will  be  perplexed.     Thus  in  conveying  to  a  deaf- 
and-dumb  child  the  thought  of  a  green  box,  one  must  make 


I20  ANTHROrOLOGY.  '  [chap. 

a  sign  for  "  box  "  first,  and  then  show,  as  by  pointing  to  the 
grass  outside,  that  its  colour  is  "  green."  The  proper  gesture- 
syntax  is  "  box  green,"  and  if  this  order  were  reversed  as  it 
is  in  the  English  language,  the  child  might  fail  to  see  what 
grass  had  to  do  with  a  box.  Such  a  sentence  as  English 
"  cats  kill  mice  "  does  not  agree  with  the  order  of  the  deaf- 
mute's  signs,  which  would  begin  by  showing  the  tiny  mouse 
running,  then  the  cat  with  her  smooth  fur  and  whiskers,  and 
lastly  the  cat's  pouncing  on  the  mouse — as  it  were  "  mouse 
cat  kill." 

This  account  of  the  gesture-language  will  have  made  it 
clear  to  the  reader  by  what  easy  and  reasonable  means  man 
can  express  liis  thoughts  in  visible  signs.  The  next  step 
will  be  to  show  the  working  of  another  sort  of  signs,  namely, 
the  sounds  of  the  human  voice  in  language.  Sounds  of 
voice  may  be  spoken  as  signs  to  express  our  feelings  and 
thoughts  on  much  the  same  principles  as  gestures  are  made, 
except  that  they  are  heard  instead  of  being  seen. 

One  kind  of  sounds  used  by  men  as  signs,  consists  of 
emotional  cries  or  tones.  Men  show  pain  by  uttering 
groans  as  well  as  by  distortion  of  face  ;  joy  is  expressed  by 
shouts  as  well  as  by  jumping ;  when  we  laugh  aloud,  the 
voice  and  tlie  features  go  perfectly  together.  Such  sounds 
are  gestures  made  with  the  voice,  sound-gestures,  and  the 
greater  number  of  what  are  called  interjections  are  of  this 
class.  By  means  of  such  cries  and  tones,  even  the  compli- 
cated tempers  of  sympathy,  or  pity,  or  vexation,  can  be 
shown  with  wonderful  exactness.  Let  any  one  put  on  a 
laughing,  sneering,  or  cross  face,  and  then  talk,  he  may 
notice  how  his  tone  of  voice  follows ;  the  attitude  of 
features  belonging  to  each  particular  temper  acts  directly 
on  the  voice,  especially  in  affecting  the  musical  quality  of 
the  vowels.     Thus  the  speaker's  tones  become  signs  of  the 


JV.]  .     LANGUAGE.  121 

emotion  he  feels,  or  pretends  to  feel.  That  this  mode  of 
expression  is  in  fact  musical,  is  shown  by  its  being  imitated 
on  the  violin,  Avhich  by  altering  its  quality  of  tone  can 
change  from  pain  to  joy.  The  human  \oice  uses  other 
means  of  expression  belonging  to  music,  such  as  the  con- 
trast of  low  and  loud,  slow  and  quick,  gentle  and  violent, 
and  the  changes  of  pitch,  now  rising  in  the  scale  and  now 
falling.  A  speaker,  by  skilfully  managing  these  various 
means,  can  carry  his  hearer's  mind  through  moods  of  mild 
languor  and  sudden  surprise,  the  lively  movement  of  cheer- 
fulness rising  to  eager  joy,  the  burst  of  impetuous  fury 
gradually  subsiding  to  calm.  We  can  all  do  this,  and  what 
is  more,  we  do  it  without  reference  to  the  meaning  of  the 
words  used,  for  emotion  can  be  expressed  and  even  delicately 
shaded  off  in  pronouncing  mere  nonsense-syllables.  For 
instance,  the  words  of  an  Italian  opera  in  England  are  to  a 
great  part  of  the  audience  mere  nonsense-syllables  serving 
as  a  means  of  musical  and  emotional  expression.  Clearly 
this  kind  of  utterance  ought  to  be  understood  by  all  man- 
kind, whatever  be  the -language  they  may  happen  to  speak. 
It  is  so,  for  the  most  savage  and  outlandish  tribes  know  how 
to  make  such  interjections  as  ah  .'  oh !  express  by  their 
tone  such  feelings  as  surprise,  pain,  entreaty,  threatening, 
disdain,  and  they  understand  as  well  as  we  do  the  growling 
iir-r-r !   of  anger,  or  the///// .'  of  contempt. 

The  next  class  of  sounds  used  as  expressive  signs  are 
imitative.  As  a  deaf-and-dumb  child  expresses  the  idea  of 
a  cat  by  imitating  the  creature's  act  of  washing  its  face,  so 
a  speaking  child  will  indicate  it  by  imitating  its  viiaou.  If 
the  two  children  wish  to  show  that  they  are  thinking  of  a 
clock,  the  dumb  one  w^ill  show  with  his  hand  the  swinging  of 
the  pendulum,  while  the  speaking  one  will  say  ^' tick- tacky 
Here  again  the  sounds  are  gestures  made  with  the  voice,  or 


122  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [CHAp. 

sound-gestures.  In  this  way  an  endless  variety  of  objects 
and  actions  can  be  brought  to  mind  by  imitating  their  proper 
sounds.  Not  only  do  children  delight  in  such  vocal  imita- 
tions, but  they  have  come  into  ordinary  language,  as  when 
people  speak  of  the  coo  of  the  pigeon,  the  hee-Jiaw  of  the 
donkey,  the  ding-dong  of  the  bell,  and  the  rat-iat  of  the 
knocker.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that  these  ways  of  ex- 
pression are  understood  by  mankind  all  the  world  over. 

Now  joining  gesture-actions  and  gesture-sounds,  they  will 
form  together  what  may  be  called  a  Natural  Language. 
This  natural  language  really  exists,  and  in  wild  regions  even 
has  some  practical  value,  as  when  a  European  traveller 
makes  shift  to  converse  in  it  with  a  party  of  Australians 
round  their  camp  fire,  or  with  a  Mongol  family  in  their 
felt  tent.  What  he  has  to  do  is  to  act  his  most  expressive 
mimic  gestures,  with  a  running  accompaniment  of  exclama- 
tions and  imitative  noises.  Here  then  is  found  a  natural 
means  of  intercourse,  much  fuller  than  mere  pantomime  of 
gestures  only.  It  is  a  common  language  of  all  mankind, 
springing  so  directly  from  the  human  mind  that  it  must  have 
belonged  to  our  race  from  the  most  remote  ages  and  most 
primitive  conditions  in  which  man  existed. 

Here  a  very  interesting  question  arises,  on  which  every 
student  has  the  means  of  experimenting  for  himself.  How 
far  are  the  communications  of  the  lower  animals,  by  their 
actions  and  sounds,  like  this  natural  language  of  mankind  ? 
Every  one  who  attends  to  the  ways  of  beasts  and  birds  is 
sure  that  many  of  their  movements  and  cries  are  not  made 
as  messages  to  one  another,  but  are  merely  symptoms  of  the 
creature's  own  state  of  mind  ;  for  instance,  when  lambs  frisk 
in  the  meadow,  or  eager  horses  paw  in  the  stable,  or  beasts 
moan  when  suffering  severe  pain.  Animals  do  thus  when 
not  aware  that  any  other  creature  is  present,  just  as  when  a 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  123 

man  in  a  room  by  himself  will  clench  his  fist  in  anger,  or 
groan  in  pain,  or  laugh  aloud.  When  gestures  and  cries  serve 
as  signals  to  other  creatures,  they  come  nearer  to  real  signs. 
The  lower  animals  as  well  as  man  do  make  gestures  and 
cries  which  act  as  communications,  being  perceived  by 
others,  as  when  horses  will  gently  bite  one  another  to  invite 
rubbing,  or  rabbits  stamp  on  the  ground  and  other  rabbits 
answer,  and  birds  and  beasts  plainly  call  one  another, 
especially  males  and  females  at  pairing-time.  So  distinct 
are  the  gestures  and  cries  of  animals  under  different  cir- 
cumstances, that  by  experience  we  know  their  meaning 
almost  certainly.  Human  language  does  not  answer  its 
purpose  more  perfectly  than  the  hen's  cluck  to  call  her 
chickens,  or  the  bellow  of  rage  with  which  the  bull,  tossing 
his  head,  warns  off  a  dog  near  his  paddock.  As  yet,  how- 
ever, no  observer  has  been  able  to  follow  the  workings  of 
mind  even  in  the  dog  that  jumps  up  for  food  and  barks  for 
the  door  to  be  opened.  It  is  hard  to  say  how  far  the  dog's 
mind  merely  associates  jumping  up  with  being  fed,  and 
barking  with  being  let  in,  or  how  far  it  forms  a'  conception 
like  ours  of  what  it  is  doing  and  why  it  does  it.  Anyhow, 
it  is  clear  that  the  beasts  and  birds  go  so  far  in  the  natural 
language  as  to  make  and  perceive  gestures  and  cries  as 
signals.  But  a  dog's  mind  seems  not  to  go  beyond  this 
point,  that  a  good  imitation  of  a  mew  leads  it  to  look  for  a 
cat  in  the  room ;  whereas  a  child  can  soon  make  out  from 
the  nurse  saying  miaou  that  she  means  something  about 
some  cat,  which  need  not  even  be  near  by.  That  is,  a 
young  child  can  understand  what  is  not  proved  to  have 
entered  into  the  mind  of  the  cleverest  dog,  elephant,  or 
ape,  that  a  sound  may  be  used  as  the  sign  of  a  thought  or 
idea.  Thus,  while  the  lower  animals  share  with  man  the 
beginnings  of  the  natural  language,  they  hardly  get  beyond 


124  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

its  rudiments,  while  the  human  mind  easily  goes  on  to  higher 
stages. 

In  describing  the  natural  language  of  gestures  and  excla- 
mations, we  have  as  yet  only  looked  at  it  as  used  alone 
where  more  perfect  language  is  not  to  be  had.  It  has  now 
to  be  noticed  that  fragments  of  it  are  found  in  the  midst  of 
ordinary  language.  A  people  may  speak  English,  or  Chinese, 
or  Choctaw,  as  their  mother-tongue,  but  nevertheless  they 
will  keep  up  the  use  of  the  expressive  gestures  and  inter- 
jections and  imitations  which  belong  to  natural  language. 
Mothers  and  nurses  use  these  in  teaching  little  children  to 
think  and  speak.  It  is  needless  to  print  examples  of  this 
nursery  talk,  for  unless  our  readers'  minds  have  already  been 
struck  by  it,  they  are  not  likely  to  study  philology  to  much 
purpose.  In  the  conversation  of  grown  people,  the  self- 
expressive  or  natural  sounds  become  more  scanty,  yet  they 
are  real  and  unmistakable,  as  the  following  examples  will 
serve  to  show. 

As  for  gestures,  many  in  constant  use  among  our  own 
and  other  nations  must  have  come  down  from  generation  to 
generation  since  primitive  ages  of  mankind,  as  when  the 
orator  bows  his  head,  or  holds  up  a  threatening  hand,  or 
thrusts  from  him  an  imaginary  intruder,  or  points  to  the 
sky,  or  counts  his  friends  or  enemies  on  his  fingers. 
Next,  as  to  emotional  sounds,  a  variety  of  these  is 
actually  used  in  every  language.  For  instances,  a  few 
may  be  cited  from  among  the  interjections  set  down  in 
grammars : 

English— (?// /    oh!     vgh!    foh!     ha!  ha!    Ih(  !  {\.A)     sh ! 
Sanskrit — aho !    (surprise),  aha!  (reproach),   «;«/ (vexation). 
Malay — «•/«/ (triumph),   7veh!  (compassion),   chih!  (dislike). 
Galla — o!     wayo  !  (sorrow),   me!  (entreaty). 
Australian — ndh!  (.urprise),  pojhl  (contempt). 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  125 

As  for  imitative  words,  all  languages  of  mankind,  ancient 
and  modern,  savage  and  civilized,  contain  more  or  less  of 
them,  and  any  English  child  can  see  how  the  following  set 
of  animals  and  instruments  were  named  by  appropriate 
sound  : — • 

Ass  =  eo  (Egyptian). 

Crow  =  kaka  (Sanskrit). 

Cat  =  mau  (Chinese). 

Nightingale  =  bidbnl  (Persian). 

Hoopoe  =  upupa  (Latin). 

Rattlesnake  =  shi-s/n-g:c'a  (Algonquin). 

Fly  =  bumhcroo  (Australian). 


Drum  =  dundu  (Sanskrit). 
Flute  =  uhile  (Galla). 
Whistle  =  /////  (Malay). 
Bell  =  kwa-lal-kwa-Ial  (Yaka'Jia). 
Blow-tube  =  pub  (Quiche). 
Gun  —  piing  (Botokudo). 

Such  words  are  always  springing  up  afresh  in  dialect 
or  slang ;  for  instance  English  pop,  meaning  ginger-beer  ; 
German  gaggele,  an  egg,  from  the  cackle  of  the  hen  as  she  laid 
it;  French  "maitre  _/?/?,"  a  scavenger  (as  it  were  "master 
fic-Jie").  In  the  same  way  many  actions  are  expressed 
by  appropriate  sounds  Thus  in  the  Tecuna  language  of 
Brazil  the  verb  to  sneeze  is  haitsc/m,  while  the  Welsh  for 
a  sneeze  is  tis.  In  the  Chinuk  jargon,  the  expressive 
sound  humm  means  to  stink,  and  the  drover's  kish-kish 
becomes  a  verb  meaning  to  drive  horses  or  cattle.  It  is 
even  possible  to  find  a  whole  sentence  made  with  imitative 
words,  for  the  Galla  of  Abyssinia,  to  express  "  the  smith 
blows  the  bellows,"  says,  titmtiin  biifa  buffi,  much  as  an 
English  child  might  say  "the  tunitum  puffs  tho.  puffer" 
Such  words  being  taken  direct  from  nature,  it  is  to  be 
expected   that   people  of  quite  different   language   should 


126  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

sometimes  hit  on  nearly  the  same  imitations.  Thus  the  Ibo 
language  of  West  Africa  has  the  word  okoko  for  the  bird  we 
call  a  cock.  The  English  verbs  to  pat  and  to  bang  seem  to 
come  from  imitations  of  sound,  much  the  same  being  found 
elsewhere  ;  as  when  the  Japanese  say  pata-pata  to  express 
the  sound  of  flapping  or  clapping,  and  the  Yoruba  negros 
have  the  verb  gbang,  to  beat. 

Students  whose  attention  is  once  directed  to  this  class  of 
self-expressive  words,  will  notice  them  at  a  glance  in  each 
fresh  language  they  master.  It  takes  more  careful  observa- 
tion to  trace  them  when  the  sound  has  been  transferred  by 
the  process  of  metaphor  {i.e.  carrying  over)  to  some  new 
meaning  not  close  to  the  original  sense,  but  there  are  plenty 
of  clear  cases  to  choose  illustrations  from.  In  the  Chinuk 
jargon  of  the  West  Coast  of  America,  a  tavern  is  called  a 
"  heehee-howse,"  a  term  which  puzzles  a  foreigner  till  he 
understands  that  among  the  people  who  speak  this  curious 
dialect  the  imitative  word  hcchce  signifies  not  only  laughter 
but  the  amusement  which  causes  it,  so  that  the  term  in  fact 
means  "  amusement-house."  It  might  seem  difficult  to  hit 
upon  an  imitative  word  to  denote  a  courtier,  but  the  Basuto 
of  South  Africa  do  this  perfectly  ;  they  .have  a  word  ntsi-ntsi, 
which  means  a  fly,  being,  indeed,  an  imitation  of  its  buzz, 
and  they  simply  transfer  this  word  to  mean  also  the  flattering 
parasite  who  buz.;es  round  the  chief  like  a  fly  round  meat. 
These  instances  from  uncivilized  languages  are  like  those 
which  appear  among  the  most  polished  nations,  as  when  we 
English  take  the  imitative  verb  to pi/ff  ixora  its  proper  sense 
of  blowing,  to  express  the  idea  of  inflated,  hollow  praise. 
Now  if  the  pronunciation  of  such  words  becomes  changed, 
their  origin  may  be  only  recognised  by  old  records  happen- 
ing to  preserve  their  first  sound.  Thus  when  English  7C'oe 
is  traced  back  to  Anglo-Saxon  wd,  it  is  found  to  be  an 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  127 

actual  groan  turned  (like  German  weJi)  into  a  substantive 
expressing  sorrow  or  distress.  So  an  Englishman  would 
hardly  guess  from  the  present  pronunciation  and  meaning 
of  the  word  pipe^  what  its  origin  was ;  yet  when  he  com- 
pares it  with  the  Low  Latin  pipa,  French  J>ipe^  pronounced 
more  like  our  word  peep,  to  chirp,  and  meaning  such 
a  reed-pipe  as  shepherds  played  on,  he  then  sees  how 
cleverly  the  very  sound  of  the  musical  pipe  has  been  made 
into  a  word  for  all  kinds  of  tubes,  such  as  tobacco-pipes 
and  water-pipes.  Words  like  this  travel  like  Indians  on 
the  war-path,  wiping  out  their  footmarks  as  thc}^  go.  For 
all  we  know,  multitudes  of  our  ordinary  words  may  have 
thus  been  made  from  real  sounds,  but  have  now  lost 
beyond  recovery  the  traces  of  their  first  expressiveness. 

.  We  have  not  yet  come  to  the  end  of  the  intelligible  ways 
in  which  sound  can  be  made  to  express  sense.  When 
people  want  to  show  alteration  in  the  meaning  of  a  word, 
it  is  enough  to  make  some  change  in  its  pronunciation.  It 
is  not  difficult  to  see  how,  in  the  Wolof  language  of  West 
Africa,  where  dagou  means  to  walk,  dagoii  signifies  to  walk 
proudly;  dagana  means  to  ask  humbly,  but  dagaua  to  de- 
mand. In  the  Mpongwe  language  the  meaning  can  be 
actually  reversed  by  changing  the  pronunciation:  as  "mi 
tonda,"  I  love,  but  "mi  tonda"  I  love  not.  The  English 
reader  can  manage  to  do  much  the  same  tricks  by  varying 
the  tones  of  his  own  verbs  ivalk,  ask,  love.  This  process  of 
expressing  difference  of  sense  by  difference  of  sound  may 
be  carried  much  farther.  An  instructive  instance  of  clear 
symbolism  by  sound  is  to  be  found  in  a  word  coined  by  the 
chemist  Guyton  de  Morveau.  In  his  names  for  chemical 
compounds  he  had  already  the  term  sulfate  (made  on  a  Latin 
pattern  like  sulphuratus\  but  afterwards  he  wanted  a  word 
to  denote  a  sulphur-salt  of  different  proportions,  and  there- 


128  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [cHAP. 

upon,  to  express  the  fact  that  there  was  an  alteration,  he 
changed  a  vowel  and  made  the  term  sulfiic.  He  perhaps 
did  not  know  that  he  was  here  resorting  to  a  device  found  in 
many  rude  languages.  Thus  in  Manchil,  contrast  of  sound 
serves  to  indicate  difference  of  sex,  c/iac/ia  meaning  "  male  " 
and  cheche  "female,"  ama  "father"  and  eiiie  "mother." 
So  distances  are  often  expressed  by  altering  the  vowel, 
as  in  Malagasy  ao  means  a  little  way  off,  eo  still  nearer,  io 
close  at  hand.  In  this  way  it  is  easy  to  make  sets  of 
expressive  personal  pronouns ;  as  in  the  Tumal  language 
n^^i  "  I,"  ngo  "  thou,"  ngu  "he."  Another  well-known  pro- 
cess is  reduplication  or  doubling,  which  serves  a  number 
of  different  purposes.  It  shows  repetition  or  strengthening 
of  meaning,  as  where  the  Polynesian  aka  "  to  laugh,"  be- 
come, akaaka  "to  laugh  much,"  while  loa  "long,"  becomes 
lololoa  "  very  long."  Our  words  haiv-haw  and  bonbon  are 
like  these.  It  is  also  easy  to  form  plurals  by  reduplication, 
as  Malay  orang  "man,"  orang-orang  "men;"  Japanese 
fito  '■'' Ydzxs.^^  fito-bito  "men."  Among  the  kinds  of  redu- 
plication best  known  to  us  is  that  which  marks  tenses  in 
verbs,  like  didomi  and  tetiipJia  in  Greek,  vwuordi  in  Latin. 

These  clever  but  intelligible  devices  for  making  the 
sound  follow  the  ^ense,  show  how  easily  man  gets  beyond 
mere  imitation.  Language  is  one  branch  of  the  great  art  of 
sign-making  or  sign-choosing,  and  its  business  is  to  hit  upon 
some  sound  as  a  suitable  sign  or  symbol  for  each  thought. 
Whenever  a  sound  has  been  thus  chosen  there  was  no  doubt 
a  reason  for  the  choice.  But  it  did  not  follow  that  each 
language  should  choose  the  same  sound.  This  is  well 
shown  by  the  peculiar  class  of  words  belonging  to  children's 
language  or  baby-language,  of  which  the  word  baby  itself  is 
one.  These  words  are  made  up  all  over  the  world  from  the 
few  simple  syllables  which  children  first  utter,  chosen  almost 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  129 

anyhow  to  express  the  nursery  ideas  of  mother,  father,  nurse, 
toy,  sleep,  &c.  Thus  while  we  have  our  way  of  usnig  papa 
and  mama,  the  Chilians  say  papa  for  '-'mother,"  and  the 
Georgians  mama  for  "  father,"  while  in  various  languages 
dada  may  mean  "  father,"  "  cousin,"  "  nurse  ;  "  tata  "  father," 
"son,"  "good-bye"!  Such  children's  words  often  find 
their  way  into  the  language  of  grown  people,  and  any  slight 
change  makes  them  look  like  ordinary  words.  Thus  in 
English  one  might  hardly  suspect  pope  and  a/>/^of  of  having 
their  origin  in  baby-words,  yet  this  is  evident  when  they  are 
traced  back  to  Latin  papa  and  Syriac  al?l>a,  both  meaning 
"father." 

These  nursery  words  have  already  come  beyond  the 
"  natural  language  "  of  self- expressive  gestures  and  sounds. 
From  its  simple  and  clear  facts  we  thus  pass  to  the  more 
difficult  and  obscure  principles  of  "  articulate  language." 
On  examining  English,  or  any  other  of  the  thousand 
tongues  spoken  in  the  world,  it  is  found  that  most  of  the 
words  used  show  no  such  connection  between  sound  and 
sense  as  is  so  plain  in  the  natural  or  self-expressive  words. 
To  illustrate  the  difference,  when  a  child  calls  a  pocket 
timepiece  a  tick-tick,  this  is  plainly  selfexpressive.  But 
when  we  call  it  a  watch,  this  word  does  not  show  why  it  is 
used.  It  is  known  that  the  instrument  had  its  name  from 
telling  the  hours  like  a  K'a/^/i-man,  whose  name  'denotes  his 
duty  to  watch,  Anglo-Saxon  ivceccan,  from  7uacafi,  to  move, 
wake ;  but  here  explanation  comes  to  a  stop,  for  no  philolo- 
gist has  succeeded  in  showing  why  the  syllable  zaac  came  to 
denote  this  particular  idea.  Or  if  the  same  child  call  a  loco- 
motive engine  a  puff-pKff,  this  is  self-expressive.  Grown 
people  call  it  an  engine,  a  term  which  came  through  French 
from  Latin  ingenium,  which  meant  that  which  is  "in-born," 
thence  natural  ability  or  genius,  thence  an  effort  of  genius, 

10 


130  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

invention  or  contrivance,  and  thence  a  machine.  By  going 
farther  back  and  taking  the  Latin  word  to  pieces,  it  is  seen 
that  the  syllables  hi  and  ^tv/  convey  the  ideas  of  "-in"  and 
"birth";  but  here  again  etymology  breaks  down,  for  Avhy 
these  sounds  were  chosen  for  thesj  meanings  no  one  knows. 
Thus  it  is  with  at  least  nine-tenths  of  the  words  in  diction- 
aries ;  there  is  no  apparent  reason  why  the  word  go  should 
not  have  signified  the  idea  of  coming,  and  the  word  come 
the  idea  of  going;  nor  can  the  closest  examination  show 
cause  why  in  Hebrew  cliay  means  live,  and  meth  dead,  or 
why  ill  Maori  pai  means  good  and  kino  bad.  It  is  main- 
tained by  some  philologists  that  emotional  and  imitative 
sounds  such  as  have  been  described  in  this  chapter  are 
the  very  source  of  all  language,  and  that  although  most 
words  now  show  no  trace  of  such  origin,  this  is  because 
they  have  quite  lost  it  in  the  long  change  of  pronuncia- 
tion and  meaning  they  have  gone  through,  so  that  they 
are  now  become  mere  symbols,  which  children  have  to 
learn  the  meaning  of  from  their  teachers.  Now  all  this 
certainly  has  taken  place,  but  it  would  be  unscientific  to 
accept  it  as  a  complete  explanation  of  the  origin  of  language. 
Besides  the  emotional  and  imitative  ways,  several  other 
devices  have  here  been  shown  in  which  man  chooses  sounds 
to  express  thoughts,  and  who  knows  what  other  causes  may 
have  helped  ?  x\ll  we  have  a  right  to  say  is,  that  from  what 
is  known  of  man's  ways  of  choosing  signs,  it  is  likely  that 
there  was  always  some  kind  of  fitness  or  connection  which 
led  to  each  particular  sound  being  taken  to  express  a  par- 
ticular thought.  This  seems  to  be  the  most  reasonable 
opinion  to  be  held  as  to  the  famous  problem  of  the  Origin 
of  Language. 

At  the  same  time,  what  little  is  known  of  man's  ways 
of  making  new  words  out  of  suitable  sounds,    is  of  great 


IV.]  LANGUAGE.  131 

importance  in  the  study  of  human  nature.  It  proves  that 
so  far  as  language  can  be  traced  to  its  actual  source,  that 
source  does  nat  lie  in  some  lost  gifts  or  powers  of  man,  but 
in  a  state  of  mind  still  acting,  and  not  above  the  level  of 
children  and  savages.  The  origin  of  language  was  not  an 
event  which  took  place  long  ago  once  for  all,  and  then 
ceased  entirely.  On  the  contrary,  man  still  possesses,  and 
uses  when  he  wants  it,  the  faculty  of  making  new  original 
words  by  choosing  fit  and  proper  sounds.  But  he  now 
seldom  puts  this  faculty  to  serious  use,  for  this  good  reason, 
that  whatever  language  he  speaks  has  its  stock  of  words 
ready  to  furnish  an  expression  for  almost  every  fresh  thought 
that  crosses  his  mind. 


CHAPTER  V. 

LANGUAGE — {conHnued). 

Articulate  Speech,  130— Growth  of  Meanings,  131 — Abstract  Words, 
135— Real  and  Grammatical  Words,  136 — Parts  of  Speech,  138 — 
Sentences,  139 —  Analytic  Language,  139^ — Word  Combination, 
140  —  Synthetic  Language,  141 — Affixes,  142 — Sound-change, 
143 — Roots,  144 — Syntax,  146 — Government  and  Concord,  147 — 
Gender,  149— Levelopaient  of  Language,  150, 

A  SENTENCE  being  made  up  of  its  connected  sounds  as  a 
limb  is  made  up  of  its  joints,  we  call  language  articulate 
or  "jointed,'.'  to  distinguish  it  from  the  inarticulate  or 
"unjointed"  sounds  uttered  by  the  lower  animals.  Such 
conversation  by  gestures  and  exclamations  as  was  shown  in 
the  last  chapter  to  be  a  natural  language  common  to  man- 
kind, is  half-way  between  the  communications  of  animals 
and  full  human  speech.  Every  people,  even  the  smallest 
and  most  savage  tribe,  has  an  articulate  language,  carried 
on  by  a  whole  system  of  sounds  and  meanings,  which  serves 
the  speaker  as  a  sort  of  catalogue  of  the  contents  of  the 
world  he  lives  in,  taking  in  every  subject  he  thinks  about, 
and  enabling  him  to  say  what  he  thinks  about  it.  What  a 
complicated  and  ingenious  apparatus  a  language  may  be, 
the  Greek  and  Latin  grammars  sufficiently  show.     \'et  the 


cii.  v.]  LANGUAGE.  133 

more  carefully  such  difficult  languages  are  looked  into,  the 
more  plainly  it  is  seen  that  they  grow  up  out  of  earlier  and 
simpler  kinds  of  speech.  It  is  not  our  business  here  to 
make  a  systematic  survey  of  the  structure  of  languages,  such 
as  will  be  found  in  the  treatises  of  Max  Miiller,  Sayce, 
Whitney,  and  Peile.  What  we  have  to  attend  to,  is  that 
many  of  the  processes  by  which  languages  have  been  built 
up  are  still  to  be  found  at  work  among  men,  and  that 
grammar  is  not  a  set  of  arbitrary  rules  framed  by  gram- 
marians, but  the  result  of  man's  efforts  to  get  easier,  fuller, 
and  exacter  expression  for  his  thoughts.  It  may  be 
noticed  that  our  examples  are  oftener  taken  from  English 
than  from  any  other  tongue.  The  reason  of  this  is  not 
merely  the  convenience  of  using  the  most  familiar  words 
as  instances,  but  that  English  is  of  all  existing  languages 
perhaps  the  best  for  explaining  the  development  of  language 
in  general.  While  its  words  may  in  great  part  be  traced  to 
high  antiquity,  its  structure  has  passed  through  extreme 
changes  in  coming  down  to  modern  times,  and  in  its  present 
state  the  language  at  once  keeps  up  relics  of  ancient  forma- 
tions, and  has  the  freest  growth  actually  going  on.  Thus, 
in  one  way  or  another,  English  has  something  to  show  in 
illustration  of  three  out  of  four  of  the  processes  known  to 
have  helped  in  the  making  of  language,  at  any  time  and 
anywhere. 

As  in  the  course  of  ages  man's  knowledge  became  wider 
and  his  civilization  more  complex,  his  language  had  to  keep 
up  with  them.  Comparatively  few  and  plain  expressions 
had  sufficed  for  his  early  rude  condition,  but  now  more  and 
more  terms  had  to  be  added  for  the  new  notions,  imple- 
ments, arts,  offices,  and  relations  of  more  highly  organized 
society.  Etymology  shows  how  such  new  words  are  made 
by  altering  and  combining  old  ones,  carrying  on  old  words 


-134  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

from  the  old  state  of  things  to  do  duty  in  the  new,  shifting 
their  meanings,  and  finding  in  any  new  thought  some  resem- 
blance to  an  old  one  that  would  serve  to  give  it  a  name. 
English  is  full  of  traces  of  these  ways  of  word-making  and 
word-shifting.  For  instance,  that  spacious  stone  building  is 
still  called,  as  its  rough  predecessors  were,  a  barrack  (that 
is,  hut)  ;  in  it  a  regiment  (that  is,  a  ruling  or  command)  of 
soldiers  (that  is,  paid  men)  of  the  infantry  (that  is,  lads,  who 
fought  on  foot)  are  being  inspected  (that  is,  looked  into) ;  each 
company  (that  is,  those  who  have  bread  together)  being 
under  a  captain  (that  is,  head-man)  and  his  lieutenants  (that 
is,  place-holders).  On  the  front  of  the  building  is  a  clock,  a 
machine  which  keeps  on  its  old  name,  meaning  a  bell,  from 
the  ages  when  its  predecessor  was  only  a  bell  on  which  a 
watchman  struck  the  hours  ;  in  later  times  were  added  the 
7aeights,  lumps  of  metal  so-called  from  the  weights  of  the 
balance,  \hQ penduinm  (or  hanger),  and  what  are  metaphor- 
ically called  the  face  and  Iiands,  for  showing  on  a  scale  (or 
ladder)  the  hours  [or  times),  divided  into  minutes  (or  smalls), 
and  then  again  into  seconds  (or  foUowings).  These  instances 
are  intentionally  not  drawn  from  the  depths  of  etymology,  but 
are  taken  to  show  the  ordinary  ways  in  which  language  finds 
means  to  supply  the  new  terms  of  advancing  society.  It  will 
be  worth  while  to  give  a  few  cases  showing  that  the  languages 
of  less  civilized  races  do  their  duty  in  much  the  same  ways. 
The  Aztecs  called  a  boat  a  "  water-house  "  {acalH),  and 
thence  the  censer  in  which  they  burnt  copal  as  incense 
came  to  be  called  a  "  little  copal-boat "  icopalacaltojitli). 
The  Vancouver  Islanders,  when  they  saw  how  a  screw- 
steamer  went,  named  it  at  once  yetseh-yetsokleh,  that  is,  the 
"  kick-kicker."  The  Hidatsas  of  the  Missouri  till  lately  had 
only  hard  stone  for  their  arrows  and  hatchets  ;  so  when 
they  became  acquainted  with  iron  and  copper  they  made 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  I35 

names  for  these  vnetcih— uei^sas/y^isa  and  uefsa/n'si'si,  that  is 
to  say,  "stone  black"  and  "  stone  red."  The  horse,  when 
brought  by  the  white  men  among  peoples  who  had  never 
seen  it,  had  to  be  named,  and  accordingly  the  Tahitians 
called  it  "  pig-cany-man,"  wliilc  the  Sioux  Indians  said  it 
was  a  "magic  dog." 

As  a  help  to  understand  how  words  [have  come  to  ex- 
press still  more  difficult  thoughts,  it  is  well  to  remember  the 
contrast  between  the  gesture-language  and  spoken  English 
(p.  119).  It  was  seen  how  the  deaf-and-dumb  fall  short  of 
our  power  of  expressing  general  and  abstract  ideas.  Not 
that  they  cannot  conceive  such  ideas  at  all.  They  use  signs 
as  general  terms  when  they  can  lay  hold  of  somo  quality  or 
action  as  the  mark  of  a  whole  class.  Thus  flapping  one's 
arms  like  wings  means  any  bird,  or  birds  in  general,  and  the 
sign  of  legs-four,  means  beasts,  or  quadrupeds  in  general. 
The  pretence  of  pouring  something  out  of  a  jug  expresses  the 
notion  of  fluid,  which  they  understand,  as  we  do,  to  comprise 
water,  tea,  quicksilver ;  and  they  ]irobably  have,  though 
more  dimly  than  we,  such  other  abstract  notions  as  the 
whiteness  common  to  all  white  things,  and  the  length, 
breadth,  and  thickness  which  all  solid  objects  have.  But 
while  the  deaf-mute's  sign  must  always  make  us  think  of  the 
very  thing  it  imitates,  the  spoken  word  can  shift  its  meaning 
so  as  to  follow  thought  wherever  it  goes.  It  is  instructive 
to  look  at  words  in  this  light,  to  see  how,  starting  from 
thoughts  as  plain  as  those  shown  by  the  signs  of  the  Ameri- 
can savage,  they  can  come  on  to  the  most  difficult  terms  of 
the  lawyer,  the  mathematician,  and  the  philosopher.  To 
us  words  have  become,  as  Lord  Bacon  said,  counters  for 
notions.  By  means  of  words  we  are  enabled  to  deal  with 
abstract  ideas,  got  by  comparing  a  number  of  thoughts,  but 
so  as  only  to  attend   to  what   they  have  in  common.     The 


136  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

reader  of  this  no  doubt  uses  easily,  and  perhaps  correctly, 
such  words  as  sort,  kind,  thing,  cause,  to  make,  be,  do,  suffer. 
If  he  will  try  to  get  clear  to  his  mind  what  is  actually  meant 
by  these  words,  that  is,  what  sense  they  carry  with  them 
wherever  used,  he  may  teach  himself  the  best  lesson  he  ever 
learnt,  either  in  language  or  philosophy.  To  Englishmen 
who  know  no  language  but  their  own,  these  words  are 
indeed,  as  it  were,  counters,  chosen  at  random  to  express 
thoughts.  Having  learnt  by  practice  how  and  where  to 
apply  them,  they  are  seldom  even  conscious  of  their  highly 
abstract  nature.  The  philologist  cannot  trace  the  complete 
history  of  them  all,  but  he  knows  enough  to  satisfy  him  that 
they  came  out  of  words  easier  to  understand.  As  in  the 
Eornu  language  of  Africa,  tando,  to  "  weave,"  has  become  a 
general  verb  to  "  make,"  and  in  Hebrew  hara,  to  "  cut "  or 
"  hew,"  has  come  to  be  used  for  the  making  of  the  heavens 
and  earth  ;  so  our  word  to  niake  may  have  meant  originally 
to  fit,  or  join.  The  English  word  sort  comes  from  Latin 
sors,  a  "  lot,"  through  such  a  set  of  meanings  as  allotment, 
oracle,  fate,  condition,  chance,  portion  ;  kind  meant  of  one 
kindred  or  descent;  to  be  may  have  meant  to  grow;  to 
suffer  meant  to  bear  as  a  burden.  It  belongs  to  high 
metaphysics  to  talk  of  the  opprehensioji  of  ideas  \  but  these 
now  abstruse  words  originally  meant  "catching  hold"  of 
"sights."  One  use  of  etymology  is  that  it  teaches  how 
men  thus  contrived,  fi'om  words  which  expressed  plain 
and  easy  thoughts,  to  make  terms  for  more  complex 
and  abstruse  thoughts.  This  is  the  high  road  along 
which  the  human  mind  has  travelled  from  ignorance  to 
knowledge. 

The  next  contrivance  of  language  to  be  noticed  is  the  use 
of  "  grammatical  "  words,  which  serve  to  connect  the  "real'' 
words  and  show  what  they  have   to  do  with  one  another. 


v.]  LAxNGUAGE.  I37 

This  again  is  well  seen  by  looking  at  the  gesture-language 
(p.  119).  If  a  deaf-and-dumb  man  wants  to  convey  in  ges- 
tures "John  is  come,  he  has  brought  the  harness  of  the 
pony  and  put  it  on  a  bench,"  he  can  communicate  the  sense 
of  this  well  enough,  but  he  does  it  by  merely  giving  the  real 
parts,  as  "John,  harness,  pony,  carry,  bench,  put."  But  the 
articles  "  a  "  and  "  the,"  the  preposition  "  of,"  the  conjunction 
"and,"  the  substantive  verb  "is,"'  and  the  pronouns  "he," 
"it,"  are  grammatical  devices  which  have  not  signs  in  his 
natural  system,  and  which  he  does  not  even  learn  the  mean- 
ing of  till  he  is  taught  to  read.  Nevertheless,  the  deaf-mute, 
if  obliged  to  be  very  exact  in  his  account,  can  actually  give 
us  a  good  idea  of  the  way  in  which  we  speaking-people  have 
come  to  use  grammatical  words.  Though  he  cannot  intimate 
that  it  is  a  bench,  he  can  hold  up  one  finger  to  show  that  it 
is  one  bench  ;  though  he  has  no  sign  for  tlie  pony,  he  can  as 
it  were  point  it  out  so  as  to  show  it  is  iJiat  pony;  instead  of 
expressing  of  the  pony  as  we  do,  he  can  go  farther  by  pre- 
tending to  take  the  harness  off  the  pony.  Now  English 
etymology  often  shows  that  our  grammatical  words  were 
made  in  very  much  this  way  out  of  real  words ;  an  or  a  was 
originally  the  numeral  "  one,"  still  Scotch  ane;  the  is  of 
the  same  family  of  words  with  that  and  there  ;  of  is  derived 
from  the  same  source  with  off;  the  conjunction  and  may  be 
traced  back  to  the  more  real  meaning  of  "  further "  or 
"  thereto  "  ;  the  verb  to  have  has  become  a  mere  auxiliary 
in  "  I  have  come,"  yet  it  keeps  its  old  full  sense  of  to  hold 
or  grasp,  when  one  man  seizing  another  cries  "  I  have  him  !  " 
When  an  Englishman  says  he  '^stands  corrected,"  this  does 
not  mean  that  he  is  on  his  legs,  but  the  verb  has  sunk  into 
a  grammatical  auxiliary,  now  conveying  little  more  than  the 
passive  sense  he  "  is  corrected."  It  is  curious  to  notice 
pronouns  being  thus  formed  from  more  real  words.     As  the 


138     ,  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

deaf-mute  simply  points  with  his  finger  to  express  "  I  " 
and  "  thou,"  so  the  Greenlander's  in'anga  --  '•'•  \^^  ivdlit  ~ 
"  thou,"  are  plainly  derived  from  nv  -  "here,"  iv  ~  "there." 
Quite  a  different  device  appears  in  Malay,  where  amba  ~ 
"slave"  is  used  as  a  pronoun  '•  I,"  antl  fimian  =  "lord'' 
as  a  pronoun  "  thou."  How  this  came  to  pass  is  plainly 
shown  by  Hebrew,  in  such  phrases  as  are  translated  in 
the  English  Bible,  '■'thy  servant  saith,"  '■'■ /ny  ^r^^  knoweth;  " 
these  terms  are  on  the  road  to  become  mere  personal 
pronouns  meaning  "  I  "  and  "  thou,"  as  in  the  Malay  they 
actually  have  done.  An  exact  line  cannot  be  drawn  between 
real  and  grammatical  words  in  English  or  any  other  language, 
for  the  good  reason  that  words  pass  so  gradually  from  the 
real  into  the  grammatical  stage,  that  the  same  word  may  be 
used  in  both  ways.  But  though  the  distinction  is  not  an 
exact  one,  it  should  be  noticed  attentively.  Any  one  who  will 
try  to  tell  an  intelligible  story  in  English  real  words  only, 
without  the  help  of  the  grammatical  particles  which  are  the 
links  and  hinges  of  the  sentence,  will  see  hov/  the  use  of 
grammatical  words  was  one  of  the  greatest  moves  made  by 
man  in  the  formation  of  articulate  speech. 

Philology  goes  still  further  in  explaining  how  the  com- 
plicated devices  of  grammar  arose  from  simple  beginnings. 
The  distinction  of  "parts  of  speech,"  familiar  to  us  in  a 
highly-developed  state  from  the  Greek  and  Latin  grammars, 
is  a  useful  means  of  showing  the  relations  among  the  several 
thoughts  talked  of  in  the  sentence.  But  it  is  possible  to 
do  without  parts  of  speech,  and  it  is  not  to  be  supposed 
that  they  existed  in  the  earliest  forms  of  language.  In 
the  gesture  language  it  has  been  already  noticed  that  there 
is  no  such  distinction  even  between  noun  and  verb.  In 
classical  Chinese,  thwan  means  round,  a  ball,  to  make 
round,  to  sit  round,  and  so  on  \  ngan  means  quiet,  quietly, 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  139 

to  quiet,  to  be  quiet,  &c.  We  English  can  quite  enter 
into  this,  for  our  language  has  so  far  dropped  the  ancient 
inflexions  as  to  break  up  distinctions  between  parts  of 
speech  in  almost  Chinese  fashion,  using  a  word  either  as 
substantive,  adjective,  or  verb,  as  the  people's  quiet,  a  quiet 
people,  to  quiet  the  people,  and  without  scruple  turning  a 
verb  into  a  substantive,  as  a  workmen's  strike,  or  a  sub- 
stantive into  a  verb,  as  to  horse  a  coach.  The  very  forma- 
tion of  new  parts  of  speech  may  be  seen  going  on,  as 
where  Chinese  shows  how  prepositions  may  be  made  out 
of  nouns  or  verbs.  Thus  "Vuo  chicng,'"  that  is  *' kingdom 
middle''  is  used  to  mean  "in  the  kingdom,"  and  "  sha  jin 
/  thing,"  that  is,  "  kill  man  iise  stick,"  expresses  "  to  kill 
a  man  with  a  stick."  So  an  African  language,  the  Man- 
dingo,  may  be  caught  in  the  act  of  making  prepositions  out 
of  the  nouns  kaug,  "neck,"  and  kotio,  "belly,"  when  they 
say  "  put  table  neck  "  for  "  on  the  table,"  and  "  house  /^e//j>  " 
for  "  ///  the  house." 

We  have  next  to  look  at  the  way  in  which  language  grows 
by  combining  its  words  to  form  new  ones.  To  see  this, 
words  have  to  be  noticed  not  as  they  stand  by  them- 
selves, but  as  they  come  together  in  actual  speaking. 
Language  consists  of  sentences,  and  a  sentence  is  made  up 
of  words,  each  word  being  a  distinct  spoken  sound  carrying 
a  distinct  meaning.  The  simplest  notion  of  a  sentence  may 
be  had  from  such  a  language  as  Chinese,  where  it  can  be 
taken  apart  into  words  whicli  are  each  a  single  syllable. 
Thus  kou  chi sJii  jin  sse,  that  is  "dog  sow  eat  man  food" 
means  that  dogs  and  sows  eat  the  food  of  men.  The  class 
of  languages  which  can  be  taken  to  pieces  in  this  perfect 
way  are  called  anaij'tic  or  isolating.  In  most  languages 
of  the  world,  however,  which  are  more  or  less  synthetic  or 
compounding,  the  tendency  is  not  so  strong  to  keep  words 


I40  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

separate,  and  they  are  apt  to  attach  themselves  together. 
To  bring  clearly  before  our  minds  how  the  joining  or  com- 
pounding of  words  takes  place,  let  us  notice  rather  more 
closely  than  usual  one  of  our  English  sentences.  On 
listening,  it  will  appear  that  the  spoken  words  have  not 
really  breaks  between  them  as  in  writing,  but  the  syllables 
run  on  continuously  till  the  speaker  pauses,  and  what  marks 
a  word  is,  not  its  being  really  separated,  but  its  having  an 
emphasis,  or  stress  (as  it  is  called  by  Mr.  Sweet).  Now, 
from  time  to  time,  certain  words  may  be  noticed  becoming 
actually  fixed  together.  How  this  joining  gradually  takes 
place  we  sometimes  try  to  show  by  writing  them  differently, 
as  hard  ware,  hard-ware,  hardivare ;  or  steam  slap,  stea7n- 
ship,  steamship.  On  listening  to  such  joined  words,  it  is  found 
that  one  of  the  two  has  lost  its  stress,  the  whole  compound 
having  now  but  one  stress.  This  is  how  in  talking  English 
our  minds  give  a  sign  by  our  voices  that  two  words  have 
become  one.  The  next  step  is  when  the  sound  of  one  of 
the  part-words  becomes  slurred  or  broken  down,  as  in  the 
end-words  of  tvateri/iaii,  n'rongfitl.  Or  both  the  simple 
words  may  have  broken  down,  as  in  hoatsivain  and  cox- 
swain, where  writing  keeps  up  the  original  meaning  of  the 
swain  in  charge  of  the  boat  or  r^v/'-boat,  but  in  actual  speak- 
ing the  words  have  shrunk  to  what  may  be  spelt  bosun, 
coxun.  Now  this  process  of  forming  a  new  word  by  (so 
to  speak)  welding  together  two  or  more  old  ones,  is  one  of 
the  chief  acts  by  which  word-makers,  ancient  and  modern, 
have  furnished  themselves  with  more  manageable  terms, 
which  again  as  the  meanings  of  the  separate  parts  were  less 
cared  for,  were  cut  shorter  in  speaking.  When  this  has  not 
gone  too  far,  philologists  can  still  get  back  to  the  original 
elements  of  such  words,  discerning  the  fourteen  night  in 
fortnight ,   the  unus  and  decern  in  undeciut,  shrunk  still  farther 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  141 

in  French   onze ,    the  jus,   dico,    in    Latin  Judex,   which  in 
Enghsh  comes  down   to  Judge. 

As  examples  how  word-compounding  goes  on  in  unfamihar 
tongues,  may  be  taken  the  Malay  term  for  "  arrow,"  which 
is    onak-panali,  or    "  child-(of-the)-bow  ; "    and    the    native 
Australian  term  for  "unanimous,"  which  is  gu7-dugyfiyul,  or 
'•heart-one-come."     To   show  how   such   compound  words 
become  shortened,  take  the   Mandingo  word  for  "  sister," 
fubadiiigmuso,  which   is   made   up  of  mi  bado  dingo   muso, 
meaning  "  my-mother-child-female."      The  natives  of  Van- 
couver's Island  gave  to  a  certain  long-bearded  Englishman 
the    name     Yak  pus;     this    appears    to    have    come     from 
yakiipeia/iiselicous,  made  up  of  words  signifying  "  long-face- 
hair-man,"  which  in  speaking  had  been  cut  down  Xo  yakpus. 
No    one    who    did  not  happen   to    be  told  the  history  of 
this  word  could  ever  have  guessed  it.     This  is  an  important 
lesson  in  the  science  of  language,  for  it  is  likely  that  tens  of 
thousands  of  words  in  the  languages  of  the  world  may  have 
come  into  the  state  in  which  we  find  them  by  the  shorten- 
ing of  long  compound  words,  and  when  this  has  been  done 
recklessly  as  in  the  last  example,  and  the  history  lost,  all 
reasonable  hope  is  gone  of  ever  getting  back  to  the  original 
form  and  meaning.     Nor  does  this  process  of  contraction 
affect  only  compound  words,  but  it  may  act  on  a  whole 
sentence,  fusing  it  as  it  were  into  one  word.     Here  the 
synthetic  or  compounding  principle  reaches  its  height.     As 
a  contrast  to  the  analytic  Chinese  sentence  given  at  page 
139,  to  show  the  perfect  distinctness  of  their  words,  we  may 
take  a  sentence  of  an  African  language  to  show  how  utterly 
that  distinctness  may  be  lost.     When  a  Grebo  negro  wishes 
to  express  that  he  is  very  angry,  he  says  in  his  metaphorical 
way  "  it  has  raised  a  bone  in  my  breast."     His  full  words 
for  expressing  this  would  be  e  ya   mu  km  wudi,   but  in 


142  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

speaking  he  runs  them  together  so  that  what  he  actually 
utters  \s  yai/iiikroicre.  Where  such  breaking  down  has  gone 
on  unchecked,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  the  language  of  a 
barbaric  tribe  may  alter  so  much  in  a  itw  generations  as 
hardly  to  be  recognised.  Indeed,  any  one  who  will  attend 
to  how  English  words  run  together  in  talking  may  satisfy 
himself  that  his  own  language  would  undergo  rapid  changes 
like  those  of  barbaric  tongues,  were  it  not  for  the  school- 
master and  the  printer,  who  insist  on  keeping  our  words 
fixed  and  separate. 

The  icw  examples  here  given  of  new  words  made  by 
compounding  old  ones  may  serve  to  illustrate  the  great  prin- 
ciple that  such  combination,  far  from  being  a  mere  source  of 
confusion,  has  been  one  of  the  great  means  of  building  up 
language.  Especially,  one  of  the  great  discoveries  in  modern 
philology  is  how  grammatical  formation  and  inflexion  has 
partly  come  about  by  a  kind  of  word-compounding.  It 
must  have  seemed  to  the  old  scholars  a  mysterious  and 
arbitrary  proceeding  that  Latin  should  have  fixed  upon  a 
set  of  meaningless  affixes  to  inflect  and  make  into  different 
parts  of  speech  a^o,  ogis,  agii,  agerc,  agais,  adii/n,  ador^ 
actio,  activHS,  active,  &c.  But  the  mystery  to  some  extent 
disappeared  when  it  was  noticed  how  in  modern  languages 
the  running  together  of  words  produced  something  of  the 
kind.  Thus  the  hood  oi  womanhood,  priesthood,  which  is  now 
a  mere  grammatical  suffix,  was  in  old  English  a  word  of 
itself,  had,  meaning  form,  order,  state  ;  and  the  suffix-/v  was 
once  the  distinct  word  "  like,"  as  is  seen  by  Anglo-Saxon 
saying  cwen-//?,  "  queen-Z/Xr,"  where  modern  English  says 
queen/y.  In  Chaucer's  English  it  is  seen  how  the  pronoun 
thou  had  dwindled  into  a  mere  verb-ending, 

"  lie  pokyd  Jolian,  and  seydc,  Slcpistrav/' 
Ilerdist^ii:'  ever  slik  a  sang  er  now  ?  " 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  T43 

In  English  the  future  tense  of  the  verb  to  give  is  "I  will 
give,"  or,  colloquially,  "  I'll  give."  Here  writing  separates 
■what  speaking  joins,  but  the  modern  French  future  tense 
donmrai,  donneras,  is  the  verb  donner  with  the  auxiliary 
verb  ai,  as,  both  spoken  and  written  on  to  it,  so  that  "  je 
donnerai"is  a  phrase  like  "I  have  to  give."  The  plural 
donnavjis,  donnerez,  can  no  longer  be  thus  taken  to 
pieces,  for  the  remains  of  the  auxiliary  verb  have  passed 
into  meaningless  grammatical  affixes  ons,  ez.  There  is 
reason  to  suppose  that  many  of  the  affixes  of  Greek 
arid  Latin  grammar  arose  in  this  way  by  distinct  words 
combining  together  and  then  shrinking.  Not  that  it  would 
be  safe  to  assert  that  all  affixes  came  into  existence  in 
this  particular  way.  As  was  pointed  out  in  the  last 
chapter,  men  wanting  to  utter  a  thought  are  clever  enough 
to  catch  up  in  very  far-fetched  ways  a  sound  to  express 
it.  Thus  the  prefix  ge,  which  German  uses  to  make  past 
participles  with,  seems  to  have  originally  signified  "  with " 
or  "  together,"  which  sense  it  still  retains  in  such  words  as 
gespiek,  "  playfellow  ;  "  but  by  a  curious  shifting  of  purpose 
it  came  to  serve  as  a  means  of  forming  participjles,  as 
spielen,  to  play,  gespielf,  played.  It  was  so  used  also 
in  Anglo-Saxon,  as  clypian,  to  call,  gaiypod,  called,  which 
word  in  its  later  form  yclcpi  still  keeps  up  among  us  a 
trace  of  the  old  grammatical  device.  Philologists  have 
to  keep  their  eyes  open  to  this  power  which  language- 
makers  have  of  using  sounds  for  some  new  purpose 
they  were  not  intended  for.  Thus,  in  English,  the  change 
of  \-owels  in  foot,  feet,  and  in  find,  found,  now  serves  as 
a  means  of  declining  the  noun  and  conjugating  the  verb. 
But  history  happens  to  show  that  tlic  vowel  change  was 
not  originally  made  with  this  intention  at  all.  The 
Anglo-Saxon    declension   proves    that   the   vowel  was  not 


'144  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

then  a  sign  of  number  in  the  noun  ;  it  was  singular  fot, 
fates,  fci,  -^XwxdX  Jet,  fota,  fotuvi.  Nor  was  it  a  sign  of  tense 
in  the  Anglo-Saxon  verb,  where  the  perfect  of  Jifidan,  to 
find,  liad  different  vowels  in  its  singular,  k  /and,  I  found, 
and  its  plural,  7C'e  fuiidon,  we  found.  It  was  the  later 
Englishmen  who,  knowing  nothing  of  the  real  reasons 
which  brought  about  the  variation  of  the  vowels,  took  to 
using  them  to  mark  singular  from  plural,  and  present  from 
perfect. 

It  is  the  work  of  grammarians  in  examining  any  language 
to  take  all  its  combined  words  to  pieces  as  far  as  possible. 
Greek  and  Latin  grammars  now  teach  how  to  analyze  words 
by  stripping  off  their  affixes,  so  as  to  get  down  to  the  real 
part  or  root,  which  is  generally  a  simple  sound  expressing 
a  simple  notion.  A  root  is  best  understood  by  considering 
it  to  have  been  once  a  separate  word,  as  it  would  be  in 
such  a  language  as  English.  Even  in  languages  where  the 
roots  seldom  appear  without  some  affix  attached,  they  may 
stand  by  themselves  as  imperative,  like  Latin  die!  say! 
Turkish  sn' !  love !  But  in  many  languages  roots  can 
only  be  found  as  imaginary  forms,  by  comparing  a  group 
of  words  and  getting  at  the  common  part  belonging  to 
them  all.  Thus  in  Latin  it  appears  from  gnosco,  gnotns,  &c., 
that  there  must  be  a  root  gno  which  carries  the  thought 
of  knowing.  Going  on  to  Greek,  there  is  found  in  giguosko, 
gliosis,  gno/ne,  &:c.,  the  same  root  gno  with  the  same  mean- 
ing. Turning  next  to  Sanskrit,  a  similar  sound,  y//^,  appears 
as  the  root-form  for  knowing.  In  this  way,  by  com- 
paring the  whole  set  of  Aryan  or  Indo-European  lan- 
guages, it  appears  tliat  there  must  have  been  in  ancient 
times  a  word  something  like  gna,  meaning  to  know,  which 
is  to  be  traced  not  only  in  Sanskrit,  Greek,  and  Latin,  but 
in  many  other  languages   of  the   family,   as   Russian  znat, 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  i45 

Englisn  kjiozu.  A  few  more  such  Aryan  roots,  which  the 
reader  recognises  at  once  in  well-known  languages,  are  sta, 
to  stand,  sad,  to  sit,  ga,  to  go,  /,  to  go,  ma,  to  measure,  da, 
to  give,  vid,  to  see,  rag,  to  rule,  mar,  to  die.  These  simple 
sounds  seem  to  have  already  become  fixed  to  carry  their 
meanings  in  the  remote  ages  when  the  ancestors  of  the 
Aryan  peoples  wandered  with  their  herds  on  the  highlands 
of  Central  Asia,  It  is  not  needful  to  tell  the  student  of  an- 
thropology how  interesting  it  is  to  arrive  thus  at  the  earliest 
known  root-words  of  any  family.  But  it  should  at  the 
same  time  be  noticed  that  even  in  the  earliest  of  these  sets 
of  roots,  we  seldom  come  to  anything  hke  an  actual  origin 
or  beginning.  Some  few  may  indeed  have  been  taken  direct 
from  the  natural  language,  for  instance  rit,  to  roar,  and  if 
this  was  so  here  is  a  real  origin.  But  most  roots,  to  what- 
ever languages  of  the  world  they  may  belong,  are  like  the 
group  given  above,  where  it  is  impossible  to  say  con- 
fidently how  their  sound  came  to  express  their  meaning. 
Unless  this  can  be  done,  it  is  safest  not  to  take  such  roots 
as  really  primitive  formations,  for  they  may  have  a  long 
lost  history  of  the  utmost  change.  How  this  may  happen, 
our  own  language  has  a  useful  lesson  to  teach.  Imagine 
one  who  knows  no  language  but  English  trying  to  get  at 
its  roots.  To  him  the  verb  to  roll  might  seem  a  root-word, 
a  primitive  element  of  language ;  indeed  it  actually  has 
been  fancied  a  natural  sound  imitating  the  act  of  rolling. 
Yet  any  philologist  would  tell  him  that  English  roll  is  a 
comparatively  modern  form,  which  came  through  a  long 
series  of  earlier  stages  ;  it  was  borrowed  from  French  rolle, 
roller,  now  role,  roiiler,  all  from  Latin  rotulus,  diminutive 
of  rota,  a  wheel,  even  this  coming  from  a  more  ancient 
verb  and  signifying  a  runner  or  goer.  Still  more  adven- 
turous is  the  history  of  another  English    word   which   has 


146  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

now  all  the  parts  of  a  verb,  to  cheeky  checking,  checked, 
besides  such  forms  as  a  cJieck  in  one's  course,  the  check- 
string  to  stop  the  coachman,  the  ^//^rX'-valve  to  stop  the 
water  in  a  pipe.  This  word  check  has  all  the  simplicity  of 
sound  and  sense  which  might  belong  to  an  original  root- 
word.  Yet  strange  to  say,  it  is  really  the  Persian  word 
shah,  meaning  "  king,"  which  came  to  Europe  with  the 
game  of  chess  as  the  word  of  challenge  to  the  king,  and 
thence  by  a  curious  metaphor  passed  into  a  general  word 
for  stopping  anybody  or  anything.  For  all  that  is  known, 
many  root-words  among  the  Greeks  or  Jews,  or  even  the 
simple-looking  monosyllables  of  the  Chinese,  may  during 
pre-historic  ages  have  travelled  as  far  from  their  real  origin 
as  these  English  verbs.  Thus  the  roots  from  which  lan- 
guage grows  may  often  be  themselves  sprung  as  it  were  from 
yet  earlier  seeds  or  cuttings,  grown  at  home  or  imported 
from  abroad,  and  though  in  our  time  words  mostly  come 
from  the  ancient  roots,  the  power  of  striking  new  roots  is 
not  yet  dead. 

Having  now,  in  such  a  broad  way  as  suits  the  present 
purpose,  looked  at  the  formation  of  words,  something  may 
be  said  as  to  how  language  contrives  to  show  the  relations 
among  the  words  of  a  sentence.  This  is  done  by  what 
grammarians  call  syntax,  concord,  and  government.  It 
has  been  seen  (p.  119)  that  the  gesture-language,  though 
wanting  in  grammatical  forms,  has  a  strongly  marked  syntax. 
The  deaf-mute's  signs  must  follow  one  another  in  proper 
order,  otherwise  they  may  convey  a  wrong  meaning  or  seem 
nonsense.  So,  in  spoken  languages  which  do  not  inflect 
their  words,  such  as  the  Chinese,  syntax  is  the  main  part  of 
grammar  ;  thus  U ping  =  sharp  weapons,  pin<g  li  =  w'eapons 
(are)  sharp  ;  chi  kuo  =  to  govern  the  kingdom,  but  kuo  chi  = 
the  kingdom  is  governed.  This  seems  quite  natural  to  us,  for 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  147 

modem  English  has  come  for  towards  the  Chhiese  plan  of 
making  the  sense  of  the  sentence  depend  on  the  order  of  the 
words,  thus  marking  the  difference  between  rank  of  families 
3lX\(\.  families  of  rank,  or  between  j/ieu  kill  lions  and  lions  kill 
men.  In  Latin  it  is  very  ditferent,  where  words  can  be  put 
about  with  such  freedom,  that  the  English  reader  may  be 
hardly  able  to  make  sense  of  one  of  Tacitus'  sentences 
without  fresh  sorting  the  words  into  some  order  he  can 
think  them  in.  Especially  in  Latin  verses  there  is  often 
hardly  more  syntax  than  if  ihe  words  were  nonsense- 
syllables  arranged  only  to  scan.  The  sense  has  to  be  made 
out  from  the  grammatical  inflections,  as  where  it  is  seen 
that  in  "vile  potabis  modicis  Sabinum  cantharis,"  the 
cheapness  has  to  do  with  the  wine  and  the  smallness 
with  the  mugs.  It  is  because  so  many  of  the  inflections 
liave  disappeared  from  English,  that  the  English  translation 
has  to  obtain  a  proper  understanding  by  stricter  order  of 
words.  Where  the  meaning  of  sentences  depends  on  order 
or  syntax,  that  order  must  be  followed,  but  it  must  be  borne 
in  mind  that  this  order  differs  in  different  languages.  For  a 
single  instance,  in  IMalay,  where  orang  =  man  and  nfan  = 
forest,  savages  and  apes  are  called  orang  utan,  which  is 
just  opposite  to  the  English  construction  "forest  man." 

Every  one  who  can  construe  Greek  and  Latin  sees  what 
real  service  is  done  by  government  and  agreement  in  show- 
ing how  the  words  of  a  sentence  hang  together,  what  quality 
is  stated  of  what  thing,  or  who  is  asserted  to  act  on  what. 
But  even  Greek  and  Latin  have  changed  so  much  from  their 
earlier  state,  that  they  often  fail  to  show  the  scholar  clearly 
what  they  mean  to  do,  and  why.  It  is  useful  to  make  ac- 
quaintance with  the  languages  of  ruder  nations,  which  show 
government  and  agreement  in  earlier  and  plainer  stages  of 
growth.     One  great  object  of  grammatical  construction  is  to 


148  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

make  it  quite  clear  which  of  two  nouns  concerned  is  subject 
and  which  object,  for  instance,  whether  it  was  a  chief  wlio 
killed  a  bear,  or  a  bear  who  killed  a  chief  A  particle 
properly  attached  will  do  this,  as  when  the  Algonquin 
Indians  put  on  the  syllable  un  both  to  noun  and  verb,  in 
a  way  which  we  may  try  to  translate  by  the  pronoun  ////;/, 
thus : — 

Ogimau         ogi  nissa««  mukw«<«. 

chief  he-did  ldlI-///;«  bear-/^/w. 

Mukwah        ogi  m=>^7iUii  ogima//;/. 

bear  he-did  kill-////;^  chief-/^/w. 

This  gives  a  notion  of  the  natural  manner  in  which  gram- 
matical government  may  have  come  into  use  to  mark  the 
parts  of  the  sentence.  At  the  same  time,  it  shows  that 
different  languages  may  go  different  ways  to  work,  for  here 
the  verb  and  object  agree  together,  and  the  subject  (so  to 
speak)  governs  both,  which  is  quite  unlike  our  familiar  rule 
of  the  verb  agreeing  with  the  nominative  or  subject.  To 
see  the  working  of  concord  or  agreement  in  a  far  clearer 
and  completer  form  than  Latin  can  show  it,  we  may  look 
at  the  Hottentot  language,  where  a  sentence  may  run  some- 
what thus,  "That  woman-i-/;<?,  our  tribe's-.T//,?,  rich-being-.f/?^, 
another  village-in-dwelling-j-/;^,  praise-we-do  cattle-of-^//^,  she- 
does  present-US  two  calves-of-.iV/t'-from."  Here  the  pronoun 
running  through  the  whole  sentence  makes  it  clear  to  the 
dullest  hearer  that  it  is  the  woman  who  is  rich,  who  dwells 
in  another  village,  whose  cattle  are  praised,  and  who  gives 
two  of  her  calves.  The  terminations  in  a  Greek  or  Latin 
sentence,  which  show  the  agreement  of  substantive  and 
adjective  with  their  proper  verb,  are  remains  of  affixes  which 
may  have  once  carried  their  signification  as  plainly  as  they 
still  do  in  the  language  of  the  Hottentots.  A  different  plan 
of  concord,  but  even  more  instructive  to  the  classical  scholar, 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  149 

appears  in  the  Zulu  language,  which  divides  things  into 
classes,  and  tlien  carries  the  marking  syllable  of  the  class  right 
through  the  sentence,  so  as  to  connect  all  the  words  it  is 
attached  to.  Thus  "  u-/'//-kosi  ^-etu  o-<5/^-kulu  /w-ya-bonakala 
si-^z<!-tanda,'"  means  "  our  great  kingdom  appears,  we  love 
it."  Here  bu,  the  mark  of  the  class  to  which  kingdom  be- 
longs, is  repeated  through  every  word  referring  to  it.  To 
give  an  idea  how  this  acts  in  holding  the  sentence  together, 
Dr.  Bleek  translates  it  by  repeating  the  dom  of  Yxwgdom  in 
a  similar  way ;  "  the  \vc\g-d07n,  our  dom,  which  dom  is  the 
great  dom,  the  do7n  appears,  we  love  the  dom."  This  is  clumsy, 
but  it  answers  the  great  purpose  of  speech,  that  of  making 
one's  meaning  certain  beyond  mistake.  So,  by  using  different 
class-syllables  for  smgular  and  plural,  and  carrying  them 
on  through  the  whole  sentence,  the  Zulu  shows  the  agree- 
ment in  number  more  plainly  than  Greek  or  Latin  can  do. 
But  the  Zulu  language  does  not  recognise  by  its  class- 
syllables  what  we  call  gender.  It  is  in  fact  one  of  the 
puzzles  of  philology,  what  can  have  led  the  speaker  of 
Aryan  languages  like  Greek,  or  Semitic  languages  like 
Hebrew,  to  classify  things  and  thoughts  by  sex  so  un- 
reasonably as  they  do.  For  Latin  examples,  take  t];e 
following  groups:  pes  (masc),  vianus  (fern.),  brachium 
(neut.) ;  auwr  (masc),  virtus  (fem.),  delictum  (neut. ). 
German  shows  gender  in  as  practically  absurd  a  state,  as 
witness  der  Hund,  die  Ratte ;  das  Thier,  die  Pflanze.  In 
Anglo-Saxon,  zc// (English  wife),  was  neuter,  while  wif-man 
{i.e.  "  wife-man,"  English  woman)  was  masculine.  Modern 
English,  in  discarding  an  old  system  of  grammatical  gender 
that  had  come  to  be  worse  than  useless,  has  set  an  example 
which  French  and  German  might  do  well  to  follow.  Yet  it 
must  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  devices  of  language,  though 
they  may  decay  into  absurdity,  were  never  origuially  absurd. 


ISO  ANT.HROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

No  doubt  the  gender-system  of  the  classic  languages  is  the 
remains  of  an  older  and  more  consistent  plan.  There  are 
languages  outside  our  classical  education  which  show  that 
gender  (that  is  gemis,  kind,  class,)  is  by  no  means  necessarily 
according  to  sex.  Thusin  the  Algonquin  languages  of  North 
America,  and  the  Dravidian  languages  of  South  India,  things 
are  divided  not  as  male  or  female,  but  as  alive  or  dead, 
rational  or  irrational,  and  put  accordingly  in  the  animate  or 
major  gender,  or  in  the  inanimate  or  minor  gender.  Having 
noticed  how  the  Zulu  concord  does  its  work  by  regularly 
repeating  the  class-sign,  we  seem  to  luiderstand  how  in  the 
Aryan  languages  the  signs  of  number  and  gender  may  have 
come  to  be  used  as  a  similar  means  of  carrying  through  the 
sentence  the  information  that  this  substantive  belongs  to 
that  adjective  and  that  verb.  Yet  even  in  Sanskrit,  Greek, 
Latin,  and  Gothic,  such  concord  falls  short  of  the  fulness 
and  clearness  it  has  among  the  barbarians  of  Africa,  while 
in  the  languages  of  modern  Europe,  especially  our  own,  it 
has  mostly  disappeared,  probably  because  with  the  advance 
of  intelligence  it  was  no  longer  found  necessary. 

The  facts  in  this  chapter  will  have  given  the  reader  some 
idea  how  man  has  been  and  still  is  at  work  building  up 
language.  Any  one  who  began  by  studying  the  gram- 
mars of  such  languages  as  Greek  or  Arabic,  or  even  of  such 
barbarous  tongues  as  Zulu  or  Eskimo,  would  think  them 
wonderfully  artificial  systems.  Indeed,  had  one  of  these 
languages  suddenly  come  into  existence  among  a  tribe  of 
men,  this  would  have  been  an  event  mysterious  and  un- 
accountable in  the  highest  degree.  But  when  one  begins 
at  the  other  end,  by  noticing  the  steps  by  which  word-making 
and  composition,  declension  and  conjugation,  concord  and 
syntax,  arise  from  the  simj)lest  and  rudest  beginnings,  then 
the  formation  of  language  is  seen  to  be  reasonable,  purpose- 


v.]  LANGUAGE.  15T 

ful,  and  intelligible.  It  was  shown  in  the  last  chapter  that 
man  still  possesses  the  faculty  of  bringing  into  use  fresh 
sounds  to  express  thoughts,  and  now  it  may  be  added  that 
he  still  possesses  the  faculty  of  framing  these  sounds  into 
full  articulate  speech.  Thus  every  human  tribe  has  the 
capabilities  which,  had  they  not  inherited  a  language  ready- 
made  from  their  parents,  would  have  enabled  them  to  make 
a  new  language  of  their  own. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

LANGUAGE    AND    RACE. 

Adoption  and  loss  of  Language,  152— Ancetral  Language,  153— 
Families  of  Language,  155— Aryan,  156— Semitic,  159— Egyptian, 
Berber,  &c.  160 — Tatar  or  Turanian,  161 — South-East  Asian,  162 
—  ?iIalayo-Polynesian,  163  —  Dravidian,  164  —  African,  Bantu, 
Hottentot,  164 — American,  165 — Early  Languages  and  Races,  165. 

The  next  question  is,  What  can  be  learnt  from  languages 
as  to  the  history  of  the  nations  speaking  them,  and  the 
races  these  nations  belong  to  ? 

In  former  chapters,  in  dividing  mankind  into  stocks  or 
races  according  to  their  skulls,  complexions,  and  other 
bodily  characters,  language  was  not  taken  into  account  as 
a  mark  of  race.  In  fact,  a  man's  language  is  no  full  and 
certain  proof  of  his  parentage.  There  are  even  cases  in 
which  it  is  totally  misleading,  as  when  some  of  us  have  seen 
persons  whose  language  is  English,  but  their  faces  Chinese 
or  African,  and  who,  on  inquiry,  are  found  to  have  been 
brought  away  in  infancy  from  their  native  countries.  It  is 
within  every  one's  experience  how  one  parent  language  dis- 
appears in  intermarriage,  as  where  persons  called  Boileau  or 
IMuUer  may  be  now  absolutely  English  as  to  language,  in 
spite  of  their  French  or  German  ancestry.  Now  not  only 
individuals  but  wliolc   j)Opulations   may  have   their  native 


cri.  VI.]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  153 

languages  thus  lost  or  absorbed.  The  negroes  shipped  as 
slaves  to  America  were  taken  from  many  tribes  and  had  no 
native  tongue  in  common,  so  that  they  came  to  talk  to  one 
another  in  the  language  of  their  white  masters,  and  there  is 
now  to  be  seen  the  curious  spectacle  of  black  woolly-haired 
families  talking  broken-down  dialects  of  English,  French, 
or  Spanish.  In  our  own  country  the  Keltic  language  of  the 
Ancient  Britons  has  not  long  since  fallen  out  of  use  in 
Cornwall,  as  in  time  it  will  in  Wales.  But  whether  the 
Keltic  language  is  spoken  or  not,  the  Keltic  blood  remains 
in  the  mixed  population  of  Cornwall,  and  to  class  the 
modern  Cornishmen  as  of  pure  English  race  because  they 
speak  English,  would  be  to  misuse  the  evidence  of  language. 
Much  bad  anthropology  has  been  made  by  thus  carelessly 
taking  language  and  race  as  though  they  went  always  and 
exactly  together.  Yet  they  do  go  together  to  a  great  extent. 
Although  what  a  man's  language  really  proves  is  not  his 
parentage  but  his  bringing-up,  yet  most  children  are  in  fact 
brought  up  by  their  own  parents,  and  inherit  their  language 
as  well  as  their  features.  So  long  as  people  of  one  race  and 
speech  live  together  in  their  own  nation,  their  language  will 
remain  a  race-mark  common  to  all.  And  although  mi- 
gration and  intermarriage,  conquest  and  slavery  interfere, 
from  time  to  time,  so  that  the  native  tongue  of  a  nation  can 
never  tell  the  whole  story  of  their  ancestry,  still  it  tells  a 
part  of  it,  and  that  a  most  important  part.  Thus  in  Corn- 
wall the  English  tongue  is  a  real  record  of  the  settlement 
of  the  English  there,  though  it  fails  to  tell  of  the  Keltic 
race  who  were  in  the  land  before  them,  and  with  whom 
they  mixed.  In  a  word,  the  information  which  the  language 
of  a  nation  gives  as  to  its  race  is  something  like  what  a 
man's  surname  tells  as  to  his  family,  by  no  means  the  whole 
history,  but  one  great  line  of  it 


154  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

It  has  next  to  be  seen  what  the  languages  of  the  world 
can  show  as  to  the  early  history  of  nations.  Great  care  has 
to  be  taken  with  the  proofs  of  connexion  between  languages. 
It  is  of  little  use  to  compare  two  languages  as  old-fashioned 
philologists  were  too  apt  to  do  when,  if  they  found  half-a- 
dozen  words  at  all  similar,  they  took  these  without  more 
ado  to  be  remnants  of  one  primitive  tongue,  the  origin  of 
both.  In  the  more  careful  philological  comparisons  of  the 
present  day  many  similarities  of  words  have  to  be  thrown 
aside  as  not  proving  connexion  at  all.  In  any  two  lan- 
guages a  few  words  are  sure  to  be  similar  by  mere  accident, 
as  where,  in  the  Society  Islands,  tipiita  means  a  cloak,  like 
tippet  with  us.  Words  must  only  be  compared  when  there 
is  a  real  correspondence  of  meaning  as  well  as  sound,  or  the 
way  would  be  opened  for  fancies  like  that  of  a  writer  who 
connects  the  well  known  Polynesian  word  tabu,  sacred,  with 
iahut,  the  Arabic  name  of  the  ark  of  the  covenant,  appa- 
rently because  that  was  a  very  sacred  object.  Also,  words 
imitated  from  nature  prove  nothing  in  this  way,  as  where 
the  Hindus  and  the  savages  of  Vancouver's  Island  both  call 
a  crow  kaka,  this  being  not  because  their  languages  are 
connected,  but  because  it  is  the  bird's  cry.  What  is  most 
important  of  all  is  to  make  sure  that  the  words  compared 
really  belong  to  the  old  stock  of  the  language  they  are 
found  in.  Before  now  a  writer  has  proved  to  his  own  satis- 
faction that  Turkish,  Arabic,  and  Persian  are  all  branches  of 
one  primitive  language,  his  argument  being  that  the  Turks 
call  a  man  ada//i,  as  the  Arabs  call  the  first  man,  and  a 
father  pader,  which  is  like  the  Persian  word.  The  foct  is 
tiue  enough,  but  what  the  argument  omits  to  notice  is 
tliat  the  Turks  have  been  for  ages  enriching  their  own 
barbaric  languag:;  by  taking  words  from  the  cultured  Arabic 
and  Persian,  and  ada>n  and  pader  are  such  lately  borrowed 


VI.]  LANGUAGE  AxND  RACE.  155 

words,  not  philologically  Turkish  at  all.  Borrowed  words 
like  these  are  indeed  valuable  evidence,  but  what  they 
prove  is  not  the  common  origin  of  languages,  it  is  inter- 
course between  the  nations  speaking  them.  They  often 
give  the  clue  to  the  country  from  which  some  new  produce 
■was  obtained,  or  some  new  instrument,  or  idea,  or  insti- 
tution, was  learnt.  Thus  in  English  it  is  seen  by  the  very 
words  how  Italy  furnished  us  with  opera,  sonata,  chiaroscuro, 
while  Spain  gave  gallina  and  mulatto,  how  from  the 
Hebrews  we  have  sabbath  and  jubilee,  from  the  Arabs  zero 
and  magazine,  while  Mexico  has  supplied  chocolate  and 
tomato,  Haiti  hammock  and  hurricane,  Peru  guano  and 
quinine,  and  even  the  languages  of  the  South  Sea  Islands 
are  represented  by  taboo  and  tatoo.  But  in  all  this  there  is 
not  one  particle  of  evidence  that  any  one  of  these  languages 
is  sprung  from  the  same  family  with  any  other. 

When  two  languages  have  such  a  common  descent,  the 
philologist  is  not  content  to  ascertain  it  by  merely  looking 
for  a  few  words  of  similar  sound.  Indeed  he  expects  to 
find  that  the  words  of  the  ancestral  language  will  not  only 
have  changed  in  its  descendant  languages,  but  that  they 
will  often  have  changed  according  to  different  rules.  Thus 
he  knows  that  according  to  the  rule  called  Grimm's  law, 
the  English  ten,  tame,  should  appear  in  German  with  a 
different  initial,  zehn,  zahm,  while  again  these  should  be 
represented  in  Latin  by  decern,  domare.  AVith  the  same 
regularity  of  change,  the  sound  which  in  some  of  the  Poly- 
nesian languages  is  k,  in  others  has  become  //  thus  the  word 
man,  in  the  Sandwich  Islands  kanaka  (whence  our  sailors 
call  any  South  Sea  Islander  a  kanakej-),  appears  in  New 
Zealand  under  the  form  of  tangata.  Going  beyond  the 
sound  of  words  into  their  structure,  the  comparative  philo- 
logist reckons   that   when  two   languages   are   allied,  they 


156  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

ought  to  show  such  similarity  in  the  roots  and  in  the  putting 
together,  that  neither  chance  nor  borrowing  can  account  for 
the  resemblance.  In  the  first  chapter,  for  another  purpose, 
examples  were  given  of  languages  continuing  to  show  their 
intimate  connexion  while  diverging  from  their  parent  tongues. 
The  reader  may  find  it  worth  while  to  look  back  to  these 
illustrations  (p.  8)  before  going  on  to  the  following  sketch  of 
the  families  of  language  belonging  to  the  various  races  of  man. 
The  languages  of  white  men  mostly  belong  to  two  great 
families,  the  Aryan  and  Semitic.  First  as  to  the  Aryan 
family,  called  also  Indo-Euro{)ean,  which  takes  in  the  lan- 
guages of  part  of  South  and  West  Asia,  and  almost  the  whole 
of  Europe.  The  original  tongue  whence  these  are  all 
descended  may  be  called  the  Primitive  Aryan.  What  the 
roots  of  this  ancient  language  were  like,  and  how  they  were 
put  together  into  words,  the  student  may  gain  an  idea  from 
Greek  and  Latin,  but  a  still  better  from  Sanskrit,  where 
both  roots  and  inflexions  have  been  kept  up  in  a  more  per- 
fect and  regular  state.  As  a  rough  illustration  of  the  way 
in  which  words  of  our  familiar  European  languages  may  be 
discerned  in  Sanskrit,  one  line  of  the  first  hymn  of  the  Veda 
is  here  given,  where  the  worshippers  entreat  Agni,  the  divine 
Fire,  that  he  will  be  approachable  to  us  as  a  father  to  a  son, 
and  will  be  near  for  our  happiness  : 

Sa   nnli    pita-iva    sunave    Ague    su-upayanah    bhava :     sachasva    nah 
svastaye. 

Here  may  be  more  or  less  clearly  made  out  words  connected 
with  Latin,  Greek,  and  English  vos,  pater,  son,  ij^Jiis,  up,  be, 
sequi,  citcsto,  and  others.  Though  the  original  Aryan  is  a 
lost  language,  philologists  try  to  reconstruct  it  by  compar- 
ing its  oldest  and  most  perfect  descendants,  Sanskrit,  Old 
Persian,   Cireek,  Latin,  Old  Russian,  Gothic,  Old  Irish,  &c. 


VL]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  157 

Granting  that  a  primitive  Aryan  tongue  once  existed,  there 
must  once  have  been  a  nation  who  spoke  it,  and  whose 
descendants  carried  it  down  to  later  ages.  It  is  hard  to 
draw  any  certain  bodily  picture  of  the  primitive  Aryans 
themselves  (see  page  109),  for  in  their  course  of  migra- 
tion and  conquest  they  so  mingled  with  other  races,  that 
now  the  nations  united  by  Aryan  speech  range  through 
the  utmost  varieties  of  white  men,  from  the  Icelander 
to  the  Hindu.  The  early  home  of  the  Aryans  is  supposed 
to  have  been  in  Inner  Asia,  perhaps  in  the  present 
Turkestan,  in  the  region  of  the  Oxus  and  Yaxartes,  for 
here  the  practicable  way  of  migration  for  nomads  with 
flocks  and  herds  lies  open  down  into  Persia  on  the  one 
side,  and  India  on  the  other,  As  India  and  Persia  have 
preserved  in  their  sacred  languages  the  Aryan  tongue 
less  changed  than  elsewhere,  it  may  be  judged  that  the 
land  whence  the  invading  Aryans  came  was  not  far  off. 
But  it  may  have  been  further  east  in  Central  Asia,  or  farther 
west  on  the  Russian  plains.  In  this  home-land,  wherever  it 
may  have  been,  the  Aryans  lived  in  barbaric  but  not  savage 
clans,  tilling  the  soil  and  grazing  their  flocks  and  herds, 
workers  in  metal  and  skilled  in  many  arts  of  life,  a  warlike 
folk  who  went  forth  to  fight  in  chariots,  a  people  able  to 
govern  and  obey,  to  make  laws  and  abide  by  them,  a  reli- 
gious people  earnest  in  the  worship  of  the  sun,  and  sky, 
and  fire,  and  waters,  and  with  pious  faith  in  the  divine  spirits, 
of  their  ancestors.  Carrying  with  them  their  language,  laws, 
and  religion,  these  nation-founders  spread  in  radiating  tracks 
of  migration  over  South-West  Asia  and  all  Europe.  Where 
they  went  they  found  the  land  peopled  by  Dravidians, 
Tatars,  and  doubtless  many  other  stocks  once  spread  far 
and  wide,  like  the  Basques,  whose  language  still  lingers  in 
the  Pyrenees.     Where  the  old   languages   have    vanished, 


158  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  record  of  the  early  populations  of  Europe  is  only  to  be 
had  from  their  tombs,  and  seen  in  the  features  of  the  pre- 
sent nations,  which  may  be  often  more  those  of  the  original 
people  than  of  the  Aryan  invaders.  The  earliest  Aryan  hordes 
who  started  on  their  westward  migration  may  have  been 
the  ancestors  of  the  Keltic  nations,  for  their  language  has 
undergone  most  change,  and  they  are  found  in  the  far  west 
of  Europe,  as  though  they  had  been  pressed  on  by  the 
Teuton-Scandinavian  tribes  who  followed  them,  distant 
kinsfolk  but  not  friends.  The  ancestors  of  the  Graeco-Italiau 
nations  migrated  westward  till  they  reached  the  Mediter- 
ranean, and  last  came  the  Slavonic  peoples  who  now  occupy 
Eastern  Europe.  Thus  much  of  the  beginnings  of  the  Aryan 
nations  may  be  learnt  from  their  languages  and  their  places 
on  the  map.  It  is  not  in  the  earliest  ages  of  history  that 
they  appear  on  the  world-stage  where  Egyptians  and  Baby- 
lonians had  long  played  the  great  parts.  The  Aryans  become 
prominent  witliin  a  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era, 
when  in  India  there  arises  among  them  the  religion  of 
Buddha,  now  reckoned  the  most  numerous  in  the  world  ; 
when  the  Medes  and  Persians  come  into  power,  and 
Cyrus  appears  with  his  conquering  host ;  when  the  Greeks 
bring  their  wondrous  intellect  to  bear  on  art,  science, 
and  philosophy ;  and  the  Romans  set  up  the  military  and 
legal  system  which  gave  them  their  empire.  In  later  ages 
our  Teutonic  nations,  who  made  their  first  appearance  as 
the  ravagers  of  culture,  come  to  be  its  promoters.  The 
Aryan  nations  have  kept  up  in  the  modern  world  the  career 
of  conquest  and  the  union  with  other  peoples  which  they 
began  in  prae-historic  ages.  Outside  the  world  known  to 
the  ancients,  Aryan  languages  are  now  spoken  on  far  conti- 
nents and  islands,  whether  the  men  who  speak  them  are 
white  colonists  from  Europe,  who  have  slain  or  driven  out 


VI.]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  159" 

the  old  dwellers  on  the  soil,  or  whether  they  have  become 
blended  with  the  native  nations  as  in  Mexico  and  Peru. 

To  proceed  now  to  the  languages  of  the  next  family,  the 
Semitic,  an  idea  of  these  can  be  most  easily  gained  from 
Hebrew.  Any  student  seriously  bent  on  the  science  of 
language  should  learn  at  least  enough  Hebrew  to  spell  out  a 
few  chapters  of  Genesis,  for  all  the  other  languages  com- 
monly taught  in  England  being  of  the  Aryan  family,  this 
will  serve  to  bring  his  mind  out  of  that  groove,  by  familiar- 
izing him  with  speech  of  a  different  material.  A  very 
moderate  number  of  roots,  mostly  of  three  consonants,  by 
altering  their  internal  vowels  and  changing  their  affixes, 
are  made  to  form  the  greater  part  of  the  language  so 
regularly  that  Hebrew  dictionaries  are  arranged  throughout 
by  the  roots.  Thus  from  the  root  m-l-ch  are  derived  verb 
and  noun  forms  with  the  sense  of  reigning,  as  vuilach  =  he 
reigned,  vialchii  =  they  reigned,  yimloch  =  he  shall  reign, 
timloch  =  thou  shalt  reign,  inelech  =  king  (familiar  in  tlie 
vidiXnQoi  Melchi-zedek,  "king  of  righteousness  "),  melachim  = 
kings,  inalcJieTm  =  our  king,  vialchah  =  queen,  viamldchah 
—  kingdom,  and  so  on.  The  principal  languages  belonging 
to  the  Semitic  family  are  the  Assyrian,  Hebrew  and  Phoe- 
nician, Syrian,  Arabic  and  Ethiopic.  The  Assyrian  of 
the  Nineveh  inscriptions  and  the  Arabic  spoken  by  the 
desert  Beduins  between  them  best  represent  the  original 
language  they  are  all  descended  from.  The  ancient  or 
modern  peoples  speaking  Semitic  tongues  belong  mainly 
to  the  dark-white  race,  the  type  in  which  they  agree  being 
now  most  plainly  seen  in  the  Jewish  countenance,  with  its 
aquiline  nose,  full  lips,  and  curly  black  hair.  Yet  by 
features  alone  it  would  not  have  been  possible  to  distinguish 
the  Jews,  Assyrians,  and  Arabs,  among  the  mass  of  dark- 
white  nations.     Here  is  seen  the  value  of  language,  which 


l6o  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

comes  in  to  show  that  a  certain  group  of  nations  are 
connected  by  common  ancestry  from  an  ancient  people, 
who  spoke  the  lost  tongue  whence  Arabic  and  Hebrew  are 
offshoots,  and  who  in  the  ages  when  history  begins  were 
dwelling  in  South- West  Asia,  and  sending  forth  their  migrat- 
ing tribes  to  found  new  nations,  whose  acts  in  the  world 
form  one  of  the  great  chapters  of  history.  The  conquering 
Assyrians  took  up  and  carried  on  the  older  Chaldasan 
civilisation.  The  Phoenicians  became  the  great  merchants 
of  the  old  world,  with  trading  colonies  along  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  commerce  in  the  far  East,  nor  was  it  only  stuffs 
and  spices  that  they  carried,  but  they  spread  arts  and 
thoughts  into  new  regions,  and  in  their  hands  the  clumsy 
hieroglyphic  writing  became  the  alphabet.  The  Israelites, 
though  as  a  nation  they  never  reached  such  power  or 
culture,  made  their  conquests  in  the  world  of  religion, 
and  while  the  crowd  of  deities  worshipped  in  Assyrian 
and  Phoenician  temples  vanished  away,  the  worship  of 
Jehovah  passed  on  into  Christianity,  and  overspread  the 
world.  Latest,  the  warrior-tribes  of  Arabia  carried  the 
banner  of  their  prophet  among  the  nations  around,  and 
founded  the  faith  of  Islam,  a  civilizing  power  in  the  middle 
ages,  and  even  in  these  days  of  its  decay  an  influence  across 
the  world  from  Western  Africa  to  the  islands  of  tlie  far  East. 
The  language  of  the  ancient  Egyptians,  though  it  cannot 
be  classed  in  the  Semitic  family  with  Hebrew,  has  im- 
portant points  of  correspondence,  whether  due  to  the  long 
intercourse  between  the  two  races  in  Egypt,  or  to  some 
deeper  ancestral  connection  ;  and  such  analogies  also  appear 
in  the  Berber  languages  of  North  Africa.  These  difficult 
questions  can  merely  be  mentioned  here.  Attempts  have 
been  made,  though  with  little  result,  to  prove  the  Aryan 
and  Semitic  languages  themselves  to  be  descended  from  a 


VI.]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  i6i 

single  parent  tongue.  If  it  is  so,  then  ages  of  change  have 
so  wiped  away  the  traces  of  common  origin  that  philologi- 
cal comparison  fails  to  substantiate  them.  While  speaking 
of  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  families  of  language,  it  should  be 
noticed  that  many  philologists  connect  them  as  belonging 
to  one  class,  as  being  -"inflecting  "  languages,  or  such  as  can 
blend  their  roots  and  affixes,  and  alter  the  roots  themselves 
internally  so  that,  as  the  beginner  in  Greek  grammar  well 
knows,  it  is  often  no  easy  matter  to  see  where  the  root 
ends  and  the  termination  begins.  The  inflecting  families 
have  certainly  a  power  of  compact  word-formation  which 
has  done  much  to  give  expressiveness  and  accuracy  to  such 
poetical  and  philosophical  languages  as  Greek  and  Arabic. 
But  the  distinction  is  by  no  means  clear  between  the  struc- 
ture of  such  inflecting  languages  and  the  agglutinating  lan- 
guages of  other  nations,  as  the  Tatars.  Could  the  Aryan 
and  Semitic  families  be  both  traced  back  to  the  same 
family,  this  would  not  prove  the  whole  white  race  to  have 
had  one  original  language,  for  the  Georgian  of  the  Caucasus, 
the  Basque  of  the  Pyrenees,  and  several  more  would  still 
lie  outside,  apparently  unconnected  with  either  of  the  great 
families,  or  with  one  another. 

In  the  middle  and  north  of  Asia,  on  the  steppes  or 
among  the  swamps  and  forests  of  the  bleak  north,  wandering 
hordes  of  hunters  or  herdsmen  show  the  squat-built  brown- 
yellow  Tatar  or  IMongolian  type,  and  speak  languages  of  one 
family,  such  as  Manchu  and  Mongol.  Although  principally 
belonging  to  Asia,  these  Tatar  or  Turanian  languages  have 
established  themselves  in  Europe.  At  a  remote  period, 
rude  Tatar  tribes  had  spread  over  northern  Europe,  but 
they  were  followed  up  and  encroached  on  by  the  invad- 
ing Aryans,  till  now  only  much-mixed  outlying  remnants 
of  them,  Esths,  Finns,  Lapps,  are  found    speaking   Tatar 


i62  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

languages.  In  later  ages,  history  records  how  armies  of 
Tatar  race,  Huns  and  Turks,  poured  into  Europe  in  their 
turn,  subduing  the  Aryan  peoples,  so  that  now  the  Hun- 
garian and  Turkish  languages  remain  records  of  these  last 
\vaves  of  invasion  from  Central  Asia.  The  Tatar  hordes 
are  first  heard  of  in  history  as  barbarians,  as  many  tribes 
arc  still,  but  their  chief  nations  becoming  Buddhists,  Mo- 
hammedans, or  Christians,  have  adopted  the  civilisation 
belonging  to  these  religions.  The  Tatar  languages  are  of 
the  kind  called  agglutinative,  forming  words  by  putting 
first  the  root,  which  carries  the  sense  and  is  followed  by 
suffixes  strung  on  to  modify  it.  Thus  in  Turkish  the 
root  sei\  to  love,  makes  sevlslidiribnedilcr,  they  were  not  to 
be  brought  to  love  one  another.  In  some  languages  of  this 
class,  a  remarkable  law  of  vowel-harmony  compels  the 
suffix  to  conform  its  vowel  to  that  of  the  root  it  is  attached 
to,  as  if  to  make  clear  to  the  hearer  that  it  belongs  to  it ; 
thus  in  Hungarian  hdz  =  house,  forms  hazani  —  my  house, 
but  szck  =  chair,  forms  szckem  =  m.y  chair. 

The  dense  population  of  South-East  Asia,  comprising  the 
Burmese,  the  Siamese,  and  especially  the  Chinese,  shows  a 
type  of  complexion  and  feature  plainly  related  to  the  Tatar 
or  Mongolian,  but  the  general  character  of  their  language  is 
difierent.  The  Chinese  language  is  made  up  of  mono- 
syllables, each  a  word  with  its  own  real  or  grammatical 
sense,  so  that  our  infant-school  books  in  one  syllable  give 
some  notion  of  Chinese  sentences.  Other  neighbouring 
languages  share  this  habit  of  using  monosyllables,  and  as 
this  limits  them  to  an  inconveniently  small  number  of  words, 
they  have  taken  to  the  expedient  of  making  the  musical 
pitch  or  intonation  alter  the  meaning,  as  in  Siamese,  where 
the  syllable  ha,  according  to  the  notes  it  is  intoned  on, 
means  a  pestilence,  or  the  number  five,  or  the  verb  to  seek. 


VI]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  163 

Thus  the  intoning  which  in  England  serves  to  express  emotion 
or  distinguish  question  from  answer  is  turned  to  account  in 
the  far  East  for  making  actually  different  words,  an  example 
how  language  catches  at  any  available  device  when  a  means 
of  expression  is  wanted.  Looking  on  the  map  of  Asia  at 
this  south-east  group  of  nations,  it  is  plainly  not  by  accident 
that  the  people  of  such  neighbouring  districts  should  have 
come  to  talk  in  words  of  one  syllable,  but  the  habit  seems 
to  have  come  from  a  common  ancestral  source,  and  gives 
the  whole  set  of  languages  a  family  character.  These 
monosyllable  languages  are  often  used  to  illustrate  what  the 
simple  childlike  constructions  of  man's  primitive  speech 
may  have  been  like.  But  it  is  well  to  mention  that  Chinese 
or  Siamese,  simple  as  they  are,  must  not  be  relied  on  as 
primitive  languages.  The  childlike  Chinese  phrases  may 
be  not  primitive  at  all,  but  may  come  of  the  falling  away 
of  older  complicated  grammar,  much  as  our  own  English 
tends  to  cut  short  the  long  words  and  drop  the  inflexions 
used  by  our  ancestors.  Chinese  simplicity  of  grammar  by 
no  means  goes  with  simplicity  of  thought  and  life.  The 
Chinese  nation,  like  the  Egyptian  and  the  Babylonian,  had 
been  raised  to  a  highly  artificial  civilisation  in  ages  before 
the  Phoenicians  and  Greeks  came  out  of  barbarism.  It  is 
not  yet  clear  to  what  race  the  old  Babylonians  belonged  who 
spoke  the  Akkadian  tongue,  but  this  shows  analogies  which 
may  connect  it  with  the  Tatar  or  Mongolian  languages. 

It  has  been  already  seen  (p.  102)  how  the  Malays,  Micro- 
nesians,  Polynesians,  and  IMalagasy,  a  varied  and  mixed 
population  of  partly  Mongoloid  race,  are  united  over  their 
imm.ense  ocean-district  half  round  the  globe  by  languages  of 
one  family,  the  Malayo-Polynesian.  The  parent  language  of 
this  family  may  have  belonged  to  Asia,  for  in  the  Malay 
region  the  grammar  is  more  complex,  and  words  are  found 


i64  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

like  fasik  =  sea  and  langit  =  sky,  while  in  the  distant  islands 
of  New  Zealand  and  Hawaii  these  have  come  down  to  /ai 
and  lai,  as  though  the  language  became  shrunk  and  form- 
less as  the  race  migrated  further  from  home,  and  sank  into 
the  barbaric  life  of  ocean  islanders. 

The  continent  of  India  has  not  lost  the  languages  of  the 
tribes  who  were  in  the  land  before  the  Aryan  invasion  gave 
rise  to  the  Hindu  population.  Especially  in  the  south 
whole  nations,  though  they  have  taken  to  Hindu  civilisation, 
speak  languages  belonging  to  the  Dravidian  family,  such  as 
Tamil,  Telugu,  and  Canarese.  The  importance  of  this 
element  of  Indian  population  may  be  seen  by  these  non- 
Aryan  tongues  still  extending  over  most  of  the  great  triangle 
of  India  south  of  the  Nerbudda,  besides  remnants  in  dis- 
tricts to  the  north.  Yet  Aryan  dialects  are  spoken  in  India  by 
many  mixed  tribes  who  may  have  little  of  Aryan  blood.  In 
the  forests  of  Ceylon  are  found  the  only  people  in  the  world 
leading  a  savage  life  who  speak  an  Aryan  language  akin  to 
ours.  These  are  the  Veddas  or  "  hunters,"  shy  wild  men  who 
build  bough  huts,  and  live  on  game  and  wild  honey,  the  chil- 
dren, as  it  seems,  of  forest-natives  mingled  with  Singhalese 
outcasts  whose  language  in  a  broken-down  state  they  speak. 

Among  the  black  races,  whether  or  not  the  eastern  negros 
of  Melanesia  are  connected  by  race  with  the  African  negros, 
the  Melanesian  languages  stand  apart.  Nor  do  all  African 
negros  speak  languages  of  one  family,  but  some,  such  as  the 
INIandingo,  seem  separate  from  the  great  language-fiimily  of 
Central  and  South-  Africa,  named  tlie  Bantu  from  tribes 
calling  themselves  simply  "  men  ''  {ba-ntit).  One  of  the 
chief  peculiarities  of  the  Bantu  languages  is  their  working 
(just  unlike  the  Tatar  languages)  by  putting  prefixes  in  front. 
Thus  the  African  magician  is  called  mganga,  the  plural  of 
which    is  ivaga?iga,  magicians.      The   Kafirs   of  a   certain 


Yi.]  LANGUAGE  AND  RACE.  165 

district  bear  the  well-known  name  of  the  basiito,  which  is 
a  plural  form,  a  single  native  being  called  inosuto,  while  his 
country  is  ksuio,  his  language  sesuto,  and  his  character  or 
quality  bosnto.  In  South  Africa  lies  a  very  different  language- 
family,  the  Hottentot-Bushman,  remarkable  for  the  way  in 
•which  "clicks,"  much  like  what  among  us  nurses  make  to 
children  and  coachmen  to  horses,  do  duty  as  consonants  in 
words.  Lastly,  turning  to  America,  the  native  languages 
fall  into  a  variety  of  families.  Some  of  these  are  known  to 
English  readers  by  a  word  or  two,  as  the  Eskimo  of  the 
Arctic  coasts  by  the  name  of  the  kayak  or  single  boat  on  which 
our  sport  canoes  are  modelled ;  the  Algonquin  which  pre- 
vailed from  New  England  to  Virginia  at  the  time  of  the 
early  colonists,  and  whence  we  have  mocassin  and  toma- 
hawk ;  the  Aztec  of  jNIexico  known  by  the  ocelot  cixid  the  cacao- 
bean ;  the  Tupi-Carib  of  the  West  Indies  and  the  Brazilian 
forests,  the  home  of  the  toucan  and  jaguar ;  lastly  the 
Quichua  or  Peruvian,  the  language  of  the  inca. 

In  concluding  this  account  of  the  chief  families  of 
language,  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  there  are  many  more, 
some  only  consisting  of  a  few  dialects  or  a  single  one. 
Altogether  a  list  of  fifty  or  a  hundred  might  perhaps  be  made, 
of  which  no  one  has  been  satisfactorily  shown  to  be  related 
to  any  other.  It  may,  indeed,  be  expected  that  often  two 
or  three  which  now  seem  separate  may  prove  on  closer 
examination  to  be  branches  of  one  family,  but  there  seems 
no  prospect  of  the  families  all  coming  together  in  this  way 
as  offshoots  of  one  original  language.  The  question  whether 
there  was  one  primitive  speech,  or  many,  has  been  in  past 
times  most  useful  in  encouraging  the  scientific  comparison 
of  languages.  Both  theories  claim  to  account  for  the  actual 
state  of  language  in  the  world.  On  the  one  hand  it  may 
be  argued  that  the  languages  descended  from  the  primitive 


i65  ANTHROPOLOGY  [chap,  vi, 

tongue  have  branched  off  so  far  apart  as  often  no  longer  to 
show  their  connection  ;  on  the  other  hand,  if  there  were 
many  primitive  Languages,  of  which  those  that  survived  have 
given  rise  to  faniiUes,  this  would  come  to  much  the  same 
state  of  things.  But  if,  as  seems  likely,  the  original  forma- 
tion of  language  did  not  take  ])lace  all  at  once,  but  was  a 
gradual  process  extending  through  ages,  and  not  absolutely 
stopped  even  now,  then  it  is  not  a  hopeful  task  to  search 
for  primitive  languages  at  all  (see  page  131).  In  the  present 
improved  state  of  philology  it  answers  better  to  work  back 
from  known  languages  to  the  lost  ancestral  languages 
whence  they  must  have  come  down.  It  has  been  seen  that 
this  study  leads  to  excellent  results  as  to  the  history,  not 
only  of  the  languages  themselves,  but  of  the  nations  speak- 
ing them,  as  when  it  gives  the  clue  to  the  peopling  of  the 
South  Sea  Islands,  or  proves  some  remote  ancestral  con- 
nexion between  the  ancient  Britons,  and  the  English  and 
Danes  who  came  after  them  to  our  land.  Yet  though  language 
is  so  valuable  a  help  and  guide  in  national  history,  it  must 
not  be  trusted  as  if  it  could  give  the  whole  origin  of  a  race, 
or  go  back  to  its  beginning.  All  negroes  do  not  speak 
languages  of  one  family,  nor  all  yellow,  or  brown,  or  white 
men.  In  exploring  the  early  life  of  nations,  their  languages 
may  lead  us  far  back,  often  much  farther  than  historical 
records,  but  they  seem  hardly  to  reach  anywhere  near  the 
origins  of  the  great  human  races,  still  less  to  the  general 
origin  of  mankind. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

WRITING. 

Picture-writing,  i68 — Sound-pictures,  169 — Chinese  Writing,  170 — ■ 
Cuneiform  Writing,  172 — Egyptian  Writing,  173 — Alphabetic 
Writing,   175— Spelling,  178 — Prniting,  180. 

Taught  as  we  are  to  read  and  write  in  early  childhood, 
we  hardly  realize  the  place  this  wondrous  double  art  fills  in 
civilized  life,  till  we  see  how  it  strikes  the  barbarian  who 
has  not  even  a  notion  that  such  a  thing  can  be.  John 
Williams,  the  South  Sea  Island  missionary,  tells  how  once 
being  busy  carpentering,  and  having  forgotten  his  square, 
he  wrote  a  message  for  it  with  a  bit  of  charcoal  on  a  chip, 
and  sent  this  to  his  wife  by  a  native  chief,  who,  amazed  to 
find  that  the  chip  could  talk  without  a  mouth,  for  long  after- 
wards carried  it  hung  by  a  string  round  his  neck,  and  told 
his  wondering  countrymen  what  he  saw  it  do.  So  in  South 
Africa  a  black  messenger  carrying  a  letter  has  been  known 
to  hide  it  under  a  stone  while  he  loitered  by  the  way,  lest  it 
should  tell  tales  of  him,  as  it  did  of  whatever  was  going  on. 
Yet  the  art  of  writing,  mysterious  as  it  seemed  to  these 
rude  men,  was  itself  developed  by  a  few  steps  of  invention, 
which  if  not  easy  to  make,  are  at  any  rate  easy  to  understand 
when  made.     Even  uncivilized  races  have   made  the  first 


i68 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


step,  that  of  picture-writing.  Had  the  missionary  merely 
made  a  sketch  of  his  |_-square  on  the  cliip,  it  would  have 
carried  his  message,  and  the  native  would  have  understood 
tlie  whole  business  as  a  matter  of  course.  Beginning  at 
this  ])rimitive  stage,  it  will  be  possible  to  follow  thence 
through  its  whole  course  the  history  of  writing  and 
printing. 

Fig.  47  shows  a  specimen  of  picture-writing  as  used  by 
the  hunting  tribes  of  North  America.  It  records  an  expedi- 
tion across  Lake  Superior,  led  by  a  chief  who  is  shown  on 


Fig.  47. — Picture-writing,  rock  near  Lake  Superior  (after  Schoolcraft). 

horseback  with  his  magical  drumstick  in  his  hand.  There  were 
in  all  fifty-one  men  in  five  canoes,  the  first  of  them  being 
led  by  the  chiefs  ally,  whose  name,  Kishkemunazee,  that 
is.  Kingfisher,  is  shown  by  the  drawing  of  this  bird.  Their 
reaching  the  other  side  seems  to  be  shown  by  the  land- 
tortoise,  the  well-known  emblem  of  land,  while  by  the  picture 
of  three  suns  under  the  sky  it  is  recorded  that  the  crossing 
took  three  days.  Now  most  of  this,  childlike  in  its  sim- 
plicity, consists  in  making  pictures  of  the  very  objects  meant 
to  be  talked  of.  But  there  are  devices  which  go  beyond  this 
mere  imitation.     Thus  when  the  tortoise  is  put  to  represent 


VII.]  WRITING.  169 

land,  it  is  no  longer  a  mere  imitation,  but  has  become  an 
emblem  or  symbol.  And  where  the  bird  is  drawn  to  mean 
not  a  real  kingfisher,  but  a  man  of  that  name,  we  see  the 
first  step  toward  phonetic  writing  or  sound  writing,  the 
principle  of  which  is  to  make  a  picture  stand  for  the  sound  of 
a  spoken  word.  How  men  may  have  made  the  next  move 
toward  writing  may  be  learnt  from  the  common  child's 
game  of  rebus^  that  is,  writing  words  ' '  by  things."  Like  many 
other  games,  this  one  keeps  up  in  child's  sport  what  in  earlier 
ages  was  man's  earnest.  Thus  if  one  writes  the  word 
*'  waterman  "  by  a  picture  of  a  water-jug  and  a  man,  this  is 
drawing  the  meaning  of  the  word  in  a  way  hardly  beyond 
the  American  Indian's  picture  of  the  kingfisher.  But  it  is 
very  different  when  in  a  child's  book   of  puzzles  one  finds 


pa-  te  noch  te. 

Fig.  48. — Pater  iiostcr  in  Mexican  picture-writing  (after  Aubin). 

the  drawing  of  a  water-can,  a  man  being  shot,  and  a  date- 
fruit,  this  representing  in  rebus  the  word  "  can-di-date." 
For  now  what  the  pictures  have  come  to  stand  for  is  no 
longer  their  meaning,  but  their  mere  sound.  This  is  true 
phonetic  writing,  though  of  a  rude  kind,  and  shows  how  the 
practical  art  of  writing  really  came  to  be  invented.  This 
invention  seems  to  have  been  made  more  than  once,  and  in 
somewhat  dift^'erent  ways.  The  old  Mexicans,  before  the 
arrival  of  the  Spaniards,  had  got  so  far  as  to  spell  their 
names  of  persons  and  places  by  pictures,  rebus  fashion. 
Even  when  they  began  to  be  Christianized,  they  contrived 
to  use  their  picture-writing  for  the  Latin  words  of  their  new 
religion.  Thus  they  painted  a  flag  {pan),  a  stone  {te),  a 
prickly-pear  {7wch)  (Fig.  48),  which  were  together  pronounced 


I70  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

fa-t£-noch-te,  and  served  to  spell  pater  noster,  in  a  way 
tliat  was  tolerably  exact  for  ISIexicans  who  had  no  r  in  their 
language.  In  the  same  way  they  ended  the  prayer  with  the 
picture  of  water  (t?),and  aloe  {jnc),  to  express  ame7i. 

This  leads  on  to  a  more  important  system  of  writing. 
Looking  at  the  ordinary  Chinese  characters  on  tea-chests  or 
vases,  one  would  hardly  think  they  ever  had  to  do  with  pic- 
tures of  things.  But  there  are  fortunately  preserved  certain 
early  Chinese  characters,  known  as  the  "  ancient  pictures," 
which  show  how  what  were  at  first  distinctly  formed  sketches 
of  objects  came  to  be  dashed  off  in  a  few  strokes  of 
the  rabbit' s-hair  pencil,  till  they  passed  into  the  mean- 
ingless-looking cursive  forms  now  in  use,  as  is  seen  in 
Fig.  49- 


dog 


1^       ^       %      1^ 


Ancient 

Modern 
Fig.  49- — Chinese  ancient  pictures  and  later  cursive  forms  (after  Endlicher). 

The  Chinese  did  not  stop  short  at  making  such  mere 
pictures  of  objects,  which  goes  but  little  way  toward  writing. 
The  inventors  of  the  present  mode  of  Chinese  writing 
wanted  to  represent  the  spoken  sounds,  but  here  they 
were  put  in  a  difficulty  by  their  language  consisting  of 
monosyllables,  so  that  one  word  has  many  different  meanings. 
To  meet  this  they  devised  an  ingenious  plan  of  making  com- 
pound characters,  or  "pictures  and  sounds,"  in  which  one 
part  gives  the  sound,  while  the  other  gives  the  sense.  To 
give  an  idea  of  this,  suppose  it  were  agreed  that  a  picture  of 
a  box  should  stand  for  the  sound  box.  As,  however,  this  sour  d 
has  several  meanings,  some  sign  must  be  added  to  show 


vii]  WRITING.  171 

which  is  intended.  Thus  a  key  might  be  dra\Yn  beside  it 
to  show  it  is  a  box  to  put  things  in,  or  a  leaf  if  it  is  to  mean 
the  plant  called  box,  or  a  hand  if  it  is  intended  for  a  box  on 
the  ear,  or  a  whip  would  show  that  it  was  to  signify  the  box 
of  a  coach.  This  would  be  for  us  a  clumsy  proceeding,  but 
it  would  be  a  great  advance  beyond  mere  picture-writing, 
as  it  would  make  sure  at  once  of  the  sound  and  the 
meaning.  Thus  in  Chinese,  the  sound  choia  has  various 
meanings,  as  ship,  fluff,  flickering,  basin,  loquacity.  There- 
fore the  character  which  represents  a  ship,  chotu,  which 
is  placed  first  in  Fig.  50,  is  repeated  afterwards  with 
additional  characters  to  show  which  particular  meaning 
of  cho7i)  is  intended.      A  recognisable  pair  of  feathers  is 

^     M     'f^    m    tk 

ship  fluff  flickering  bas!n  loquacity 

Fic.  50. — Chinese  compound  characters,  pictures  and  scunds. 

placed  by  it  to  mean  choco  =  fluff;  next,  the  sign  of  fire 
makes  it  chow  =  flickering  ;  next,  the  sign  of  water  makes  it 
chow  ==  basin  ;  and  lastly,  the  character  for  speech  is  joined 
to  it  to  make  cho7v  =  loquacity.  These  examples,  though 
far  from  explaining  the  whole  mystery  of  Chinese  writing, 
give  SQme  idea  of  the  principles  of  its  sound-characters  and 
keys  or  determinative  signs,  and  show  why  a  Chinese  has  to 
master  such  an  immensely  complicated  set  of  characters  in 
order  to  write  his  own  language.  To  have  introduced  such 
a  method  of  writing  was  an  effort  of  inventive  genius  in 
the  ancient  Chinese,  which  their  modern  descendants  show 
their  respect  for  by  refusing  to  improve  upon  it.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  not  entirely  through  conservatism  that  they 
have  not  taken  to  phonetic  writing  like  that  of  the  western 


173  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

nations,  for  this  would  for  instance  confuse  the  various  kinds 
of  chow  which  their  present  characters  enable  them  to  keep 
separate.  But  the  Japanese,  whose  language  was  better 
suited  than  the  Chinese  for  being  written  phonetically, 
actually  made  themselves  a  phonetic  system  out  of  the 
Chinese  characters.  Selecting  certain  of  these,  they  cut 
them  down  into  signs  to  express  sounds,  one  to  stand  for  /', 
another  for  ro,  another  for  fa,  Sec.  Thus  a  set  of  forty- 
seven  such  characters  (which  they  call  accordingly  the 
irofd),  serve  as  the  foundation  of  a  system  with  which  they 
write  Japanese  by  sound  more  accurately  than  our  writing 
conveys  it. 

Next,  as  to  the  cuneiform  writing,  such  as  is  to  be  seen 
at  the  British  Museum  on  the  huge  man-headed  bulls  of 
Nineveh,  or  on  the  flat  baked  bricks  which  were  pages  of 
books  in  the  library  of  Sennacherib.  The  marks  like 
wedges  or  arrow-heads  arranged  in  groups  and  rows  do  not 
look  much  like  pictures  of  objects.  Yet  there  is  evidence 
that  they  came  at  first  from  picture-writing;  for  instance,  the 
sun  was  represented  by  a  rude  figure  of  it  made  by  four 
strokes  arranged  round.  Of  the  groups  of  characters  in  an 
inscription,  some  serve  directly  to  represent  objects,  as  man, 
woman,  river,  house,  while  other  groups  are  reatl  phonetically 
as  standing  for  syllables.  The  inventors  of  this  ancient 
system  appear  to  have  belonged  to  tlie  Akkadian  group  of 
nations,  the  founders  of  early  Babylonian  civilization.  In 
later  ages  the  Assyrians  and  Persians  learned  to  write  their 
languages  by  cuneiform  characters,  in  inscriptions  which 
remain  to  this  day  as  their  oldest  records.  But  the  cunei- 
form writing  was  cumbrous  in  the  extreme,  and  had  to  give 
way  when  it  came  into  competition  with  the  alphabet.  To 
understand  the  origin  of  that  invention,  it  is  necessary  to  go 
back  to  a  plan  of  writing  which  dates  from  antiquity  probably 


VII.]  WRITING.  173 

even  higher  than  tlie  cuneiform  of  Babylonia,  namely,  the 
hieroglyphics  of  Egypt. 

The  earliest  known  hieroglyphic  inscriptions  of  Egypt 
belong  to  a  period  approaching  3,000  B.C.  Even  at  this 
ancient  time  the  plan  of  writing  was  so  far  developed  that 
the  scribes  had  the  means  of  spelling  any  word  phonetically, 
when  they  chose.  But  though  the  Egyptians  had  thus  come 
to  writing  by  sound,  they  only  trusted  to  it  in  part,  combin- 
ing it  with  signs  which  are  evidently  remains  of  earlier 
picture-writing.  Thus  the  mere  pictures  of  an  ox,  a  star,  a 
pair  of  sandals,  may  stand  for  ox,  star,  sandals.  Even  where 
they  spelt  words  by  their  sounds,  they  had  a  remarkable  way 
of  adding  what  are  called  determinatives,  which  are  pictures 
to  confirm  or  explain  the  meaning  of  the  spelt  word.  One 
short  sentence  given  as  an  example  from  Renouf's  Egyptian 
Grainmar,  shows  all  these  devices.     The  meaning  is :   "I 


N  sun  god  P  j^^^;^^^  X 

K  one  R  "V'  ^  F      enemy  pi.      P 

one  walk  T  one  T- 

nuk  ra  netar        per  em  xnX.  er  xeftu — f 

I  sun  god    coming        from        horizon      against    enemies — his 

forth 

(am)  the  Sun-god  coming  forth  from  the  horizon  against  his 
enemies."  Here  part  of  the  pictures  of  animals  and  things 
are  letters  to  be  read  into  Egyptian  words,  as  shown  under- 
neath.  But  others  are  still  real  pictures,  intended  to  stand  for 
what  they  represent.  The  sun  is  shown  by  his  picture,  with 
a  one-mark  below,  and  followed  by  the  battle-axe  which  is 
the  symbol  of  divinity,  while  further  on  comes  a  picture  of 
the  horizon  with  the  sun  on  it.     Beside  these,  some  of  the 


174  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

figures  are  determinative  pictures  to  explain  the  words,  the 
verb  to  walk  being  followed  by  an  explanatory  pair  of  legs, 
and  the  word  enemy  having  the  picture  of  an  enemy  after  it, 
and  then  three  strokes,  the  sign  of  plurality.  It  seems  that 
the  Egyptians  began  with  mere  picture-writing  like  that  of  the 
barbarous  tribes  of  America,  and  though  in  after  ages  they 
came  to  use  some  figures  as  phonetic  characters  or  letters, 
they  never  had  the  strength  of  mind  to  rely  on  them  entirely, 
but  went  on  using  the  old  pictures  as  well.  How  they  were 
led  to  make  a  picture  stand  for  a  sound  is  not  hard  to  see. 
In  the  figure  a  character  may  be  noticed  which  is  read  R. 
This  is  an  outline  of  an  open  mouth,  and  indeed  is  often 
used  to  represent  a  mouth  ;  but  the  Egyptian  word  for  mouth 
being  ro,  the  sign  came  to  be  used  as  a  character  or  letter 
to  spell  the  sound  RO  or  r  wherever  it  was  wanted.  So 
much  of  the  history  of  the  art  of  writing  may  thus  be  read 
in  a  single  hieroglyphic  sentence. 

These  carefully  drawn  hieroglyphic  or  "  sacred-sculpture  " 
pictures,  used  as  they  were  for  the  solemn  records  of  churck 
and  state,  were  kept  up  for  sacred  purposes  into  the  time  of 
the  Greek  dynasty,  and  even  the  Roman  empire  in  Egypt. 
Indeed  after  the  secret  of  deciphering  them  had  been  lost 
for  many  ages,  the  names  of  Ptolemy  and  Cleopatra  were 
among  the  first  identified  by  Dr.  Thomas  Young.  But  from 
very  ancient  times  the  Egyptian  scribes,  finding  the  elaborate 
pictures  too  troublesome  for  business  writing  on  papyrus, 
brought  them  down  (much  as  the  Chinese  did  theirs)  to  a 
few  quick  strokes.  These  were  the  "hieratic"  characters, 
a  few  of  which  are  seen  in  the  second  column  of  Fig.  51 
following  their  hieroglyphic  originals.  Yet  even  when  they 
used  these,  the  Egyptian  scribes  never  freed  themselves  from 
the  trammels  of  their  early  picture-writing,  so  as  to  do  away 
with  the  unnecessary  multitude  of  phonetic  signs,  and  drop 


VII.]  WRITING.  175 

the  determinative  pictures  as  useless.  This  great  move  was 
made  by  foreigners. 

Tacitus,  in  a  passage  of  his  Annals  describing  the  origin 
of  letters,  says  that  the  Egyptians  first  depicted  thoughts  of 
the  mind  by  figures  of  animals,  which  oldest  monuments  of 
human  memory  are  to  be  seen  stamped  on  the  rocks,  so  that 
they  (the  Egyptians)  appear  as  the  inventors  of  letters,  which 
the  Phoenician  navigators  brought  thence  to  Greece,  obtaining 
the  glory  as  if  they  had  discovered  what  they  really  borrowed. 
This  account  may  be  substantially  true,  but  it  does  not  give 
the  Phoenicians  credit  for  their  practical  good  sense,  which 
they  were  able  to  follow,  being  strangers  and  not  bound  by 
the  sacred  traditions  of  Egypt.  No  doubt  the  Phoenicians  (or 
some  other  Semitic  nation),  when  they  learnt  the  Egyptian 
hieroglyphics,  saw  that  the  picture-signs  mixed  with  the 
spelt  words  had  become  mere  surplusage,  and  that  all  they 
really  wanted  was  a  small  number  of  signs  to  write  the  sound 
of  their  words  with.  Thus  was  invented  the  earliest  so- 
called  Phoenician  alphabet.  Some  of  its  letters  may  have 
been  actually  copied  from  the  Egyptian  characters,  as  is  seen 
by  Fig.  51,  which  shows  a  selection  from  the  compared  set 
drawn  up  by  De  Rouge,  so  arranged  as  to  pass  from  the 
original  Egyptian  hieroglyphic  to  its  hieratic  form  in  the 
current  writing,  and  thence  to  the  corresponding  letter  of 
the  Phoenician  alphabet,  with  its  value  in  our  letters  and 
examples  of  similar  letters  in  other  well  known  forms  of  the 
alphabet. 

It  seems  to  have  been  about  the  tenth  century  B.C.,  that 
the  original  alphabet  was  made,  forms  of  which  were 
used  by  the  INIoabites,  Phoenicians,  Israelites,  and  other 
nations  of  the  Semitic  family  to  write  their  languages.  A 
curious  proof  that  it  was  among  these  Semitic  nations  that 
the  alphabet  was  first  shaped,  has  come  down  to  us  in  ita 


175 


ANTHROPOLOGY, 


[chap. 


name.  To  understand  this,  it  has  to  be  noticed  that  the  letters 
were  named,  each  by  a  word  beginning  with  it.  The  Hebrew 
forms  of  these  names  are  famihar  to  Enghsh  readers  from 
Psahm  cxix.,  where  they  stand  in  their  order  alepli  or  "  ox  "  for 
a,  heth  or  "  house  '"'  ior  l>,gi/nel  or  "  camel  "  iov  g,  and  so  on. 
This  is  a  natural  way  of  naming  letters ;  indeed  our  Anglo- 
Saxon  ancestors  had  another  such  set  of  names  belonging 


Egj'ptian 
hieroglypliic. 


Egj'p'.ian 
hieratic. 


Phoenic'.an 
alphabet. 


\ 


D     {Greel-JS^>^ 


H  V    QTelrew^ 

^^S^  \U         SorSH(/Hm/.'27) 

Fig.  51. — Egyptian  hieroglyphic  and  hieratic  characters  compa-eJ  w.th  letters  cf 
Phoenician  and  later  alphabets  (after  De  Rouge)- 

to  the  rune-letters  they  used  in  old  times,  calling  their 
letter  b,  hcorc  or  "  birch,"  their  letter  ;;/,  man^  their  letter  th, 
thorn.  Now  what  confirms  the  history  that  the  Phoenicians 
had  the  alphabet  first  and  the  Greeks  learnt  the  art  of  writ- 
ing from  them,  is  that  the  Greeks  actually  borrowed  the 
Phoenician  names  for  the  letters,  which  Avere  like  the  Hebrew 


VII.]  WRITING.  177 

ones  just  given,  and  which  in  Greek  passed  into  the  well- 
known  forms  alpha,  beta,  gamma,  &c.  Thence  comes  the 
word  alphabet,  which  thus  preserves  the  traces  of  the  letters 
having  been  made  and  named  by  the  Phoenicians,  having 
passed  from  them  to  the  Greeks  and  Latins,  and  at  last  came 
down  to  us.  It  is  interesting  to  look  through  a  book  of 
alphabets,  where  not  only  may  be  traced  the  history  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  letters,  and  others  plainly  related  to  them, 
such  as  the  Gothic  and  Slavonic,  but  it  may  even  be  made 
out  that  others  at  first  sight  so  unlike  as  the  Northmen's 
runes  and  the  Sanskrit  characters,  must  all  be  descendants 
of  the  primitive  alphabet.  Thus  the  Brahman  writes  his 
Veda,  the  Moslem  his  Koran,  the  Jew  his  Old  and  the 
Christian  his  New  Testament,  in  signs  which  had  their  origin 
in  the  pictures  on  temple  walls  in  ancient  Egypt. 

Such  changes,  however,  have  taken  place  in  writing,  that 
it  often  requires  most  careful  comparison  to  trace  them.  If 
one  showed  a  Chinese  an  English  note  scribbled  in  modern 
handwriting,  it  would  not  be  quite  easy  to  prove  to  him  that 
the  characters  were  derived  from  old  Phoenician  ones  such 
as  those  in  Fig.  51.  Our  running-hand  must  be  traced  back 
through  copybook-hand,  and  from  small  letters  to  Roman 
capitals,  and  so  further  back.  Readers  will  find  this  worth 
doing  as  an  exercise.  They  may  also  be  recommended  to 
look  at  old-fashioned  English  writing,  such  as  a  Parish 
Register  of  the  i6th  century,  which  will  show  how  much 
more  the  writing  of  that  period  was  like  the  crabbed  hand  in 
which  it  is  still  thought  proper  to  write  German.  We  English 
fortunately  learnt  a  simpler  and  better  style  from  the  Italian 
writing-masters,  who  taught  us  the  ''  Roman  hand  "  which 
Malvolio  recognizes  in  Twelfth  Plight.  Alterations  in  letters 
were  not  only  made  for  convenience,  but  also  for  decoration. 
Thus  among  the  scribes  of  the  middle  ages  there  arose 
13 


178  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [CHAP. 

fanciful  varieties  such  as  what  we  call  Old  English  and 
Black  Letter,  and  still  use  for  ornamental  purposes.  This 
style  of  manuscript  being  in  fashion  when  printing  was 
introduced  in  Europe,  English  books  were  at  first  printed 
in  it,  as  many  German  books  are  still.  One  has  only  to 
read  a  page  of  a  German  book  so  printed  to  satisfy  oneself 
how  great  a  gain  of  clearness  it  was  to  discard  these  letters 
with  forms  broken  by  unmeaning  lines,  and  return  to  the 
more  distinct  Latin  letters  we  now  use. 

Beside  these  general  changes  of  alphabet,  the  history  of 
writing  shows  how  from  time  to  time  alterations  have  been 
made  as  to  particular  letters.  The  original  Phoenician 
alphabet  was  weak  in  vowels,  in  a  way  which  the  learner 
of  Hebrew  can  understand  when  he  tries  to  read  it 
without  tlie  vowel  points,  which  are  more  modern  marks 
put  on  for  the  benefit  of  those  who  do  not  know  the 
language  well  enough  to  tell  hovv  each  word  should  be  pro- 
nounced. The  Phoenician  alphabet  did  not  altogether  suit 
the  writers  of  Greek  and  Latin,  who  altered  some  letters  and 
made  new  ones  in  order  to  write  their  languages  more  per- 
fectly, and  thus  other  nations  have  made  free  in  adding, 
dropping,  and  altering  letters  and  fheir  sounds,  to  get  the 
means  required  for  each  to  express  its  own  tongue.  To  such 
causes  may  be  traced  letters  not  known  to  the  primitive  alpha- 
bet, such  as  Greek  Q  and  English  w,  which  are  explained  by 
their  names  of  Omega  or  "  great-o,"  and  "  double-U."  The 
digamma  or  F  fell  out  of  use  in  Greek,  and  the  two  valu- 
able Anglo-Saxon  //^  letters,  S  and  ]>,  are  lost  to  modern 
English.  The  letters  H  and  x  are  examples  of  letters  which 
in  Greek  served  purposes  other  than  those  English  uses 
them  for.  By  arranging  their  alphabets  to  suit  the  sounds 
of  their  languages,  nations  contrive  with  more  or  fewer 
letters  to  spell  with  some  accuracy,  Italian  managing  this 


VII.]  WRITING.  179 

fairly  with  twenty-two  letters,  while  Russian  uses  thirty-six. 
English  has  an  alphabet  of  twenty-six  letters,  but  works 
them  without  regular  system,  so  that  our  spelling  and 
pronunciation  disagree  at  every  turn.  One  cause  of  this 
state  of  things  has  been  the  attempt  to  keep  up  side  by  side 
two  different  spellings,  English  and  French,  as  where  g  is 
used  to  spell  both  the  English  word  gef  and  the  French 
word  gentle.  Another  cause  has  been  the  attempt  to  keep  up 
ancient  sounds  in  writing,  although  they  have  been  dropped 
in  speaking ;  thus  in  throuGU,  casrle,  scene,  the  now  silent 
letters  are  relics  of  sounds  which  used  to  be  really  heard 
in  Anglo-Saxon  thuru,  Latin  casTeHum,  Greek  sK'ene.  "What 
makes  this  the  more  perplexing  is,  that  in  many  words  Eng- 
lish writing  does  simply  try  to  spell  what  is  actually  spoken ; 
English  /rt'/'/does  not  keep  up  the  lost  guttural  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  t^gel,  nor  does  English  palsy  retain  letters  for  the 
sounds  that  have  vanished  in  its  derivation  from  French 
paralysie.  Our  wrong  spelling  is  the  result  not  of  rule  but 
of  want  of  rule,  and  among  its  most  curious  cases  are  those 
where  the  grammarians  have  managed  to  put  both  sound 
and  etymology  wrong  at  once,  writing  island,  rhyme,  scythe, 
where  their  forefathers  rationally  wrote  Hand,  ri/ne,  sithe.  It 
is  reckoned  that  on  an  average,  a  year  of  an  English  child's 
education  is  wasted  in  overcoming  the  defects  of  the 
present  mode  of  spelling. 

The  invention  of  writing  was  the  great  movement  by 
which  mankind  rose  from  barbarism  to  civilization.  How 
vast  its  effect  was,  may  be  best  measured  by  looking  at  the 
low  condition  of  tribes  still  living  without  it,  dependent  on 
memory  for  their  traditions  and  rules  of  life,  and  unable  to 
amass  knowledge  as  we  do  by  keeping  records  of  events, 
and  storing  up  new  observations  for  the  use  of  future  genera- 
tions.    Thus  it  is  no  doubt  risrht  to  draw  the  line  between 


iSo  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

barbarian  and  civilized  where  the  art  of  writing  comes  in,  for 
this  gives  permanence  to  history,  law,  and  science.  Such 
knowledge  so  goes  with  writing,  that  when  a  man  is  spoken 
of  as  learned,  we  at  once  take  it  to  mean  that  he  has  read 
many  books,  which  are  the  main  source  men  learn  from. 
Already  in  ancient  times,  as  compositions  of  value  came  to  be 
written,  there  sprang  up  a  class  of  copyists  or  transcribers, 
whose  business  was  to  muhiply  books.  In  Alexandria  or 
Rome  one  could  go  to  the  bibliopole  or  bookseller  and  buy 
a  manuscript  of  Demosthenes  or  Livy,  and  in  later  ages 
the  copying  of  religious  books  splendidly  illuminated,  be- 
came a  common  occupation,  especially  in  monasteries.  But 
manuscripts  were  costly,  only  the  (qw  scholars  could  read 
them,  and  so  no  doubt  it  would  have  remained  had  not  a 
new  art  come  in  to  multiply  writing. 

This  was  a  process  simple  enough  in  itself,  and  indeed 
well  known  from  remote  ages.  Every  Egyptian  or  Baby- 
lonian who  smeared  some  black  on  his  signet-ring  or  en- 
graved cylinder,  and  took  off  a  copy,  had  made  the  first  step 
towards  printing.  But  easy  as  the  further  application  now 
seems  to  us,  no  one  in  the  Old  World  saw  it.  It  appears 
to  have  been  the  Chinese  who  invented  the  plan  of  engrav- 
ing a  whole  page  of  characters  on  a  wood-block  and  printing 
off  many  copies.  They  may  have  begun  as  early  as  the  sixth 
century,  and  at  any  rate  in  the  tenth  century  they  were  busy 
printing  books.  The  Chinese  writing,  from  its  enormous 
diversity  of  characters,  is  not  well  suited  to  printing  by 
movable  types,  but  there  is  a  record  thit  this  plan  was 
early  devised  among  them,  having  been  carried  on  with 
separate  terracotta  types  in  the  eleventh  century,  Moslem 
writers  early  in  the  fourteenth  century  describe  Chinese 
jjrinting,  so  that  it  was  probably  through  them  that  the  art 
found  its  way   to  Europe,   where  not  long  afterwards  the 


VII.]  WRITING.  iSi 

so-called  "block-books,"  printed  from  whole  page  wood- 
blocks after  the  Chinese  manner,  make  their  appearance, 
followed  by  books  printed  with  movable  types.  Few  ques- 
tions have  been  more  debated  by  antiquaries  than  the  claims 
of  Gutenberg,  Faust,  and  the  others  to  their  share  of  honour 
as  the  inventors  of  printing.  Great  as  was  the  service  these 
worthies  did  to  the  world,  it  is  only  fair  to  remember  that 
what  they  did  was  but  to  improve  the  practical  application 
of  a  Chinese  invention.  Since  their  time  progress  has  been 
made  in  cheapening  types,  making  paper  by  machineiy, 
improving  the  presses,  and  working  them  by  steam-power, 
but  the  idea  remains  the  same.  Such  is,  in  few  words,  the 
history  of  the  art  of  printing,  to  which  perhaps,  more 
than  to  any  other  influence,  is  due  the  difference  of  bur 
modern  life  from  that  of  the  middle  ages. 

In  examining  these  methods  of  writing,  we  began  with  the 
rude  hunter's  pictures,  passing  on  to  the  Egyptian's  use  of 
a  picture  to  represent  the  sound  of  its  name,  then  to  the 
breaking  down  of  the  picture  into  a  mere  sound  sign,  till  in 
this  last  stage  the  connexion  between  figure  and  sound 
becomes  so  apparently  arbitrary,  that  the  child  has  to  be 
taught,  this  sign  stands  for  A,  this  for  B.  In  curious  con- 
trast with  this  is  the  modern  invention  of  the  phonograph, 
where  the  actual  sound  spoken  into  the  vibrating  diaphragm 
marks  indentations  in  the  travelling  strip  of  tinfoil,  by 
which  the  diaphragm  can  be  afterwards  caused  to  repeat 
the  vibrations  and  re-utter  the  sound.  When  one  listens 
to  the  tones  coming  forth  from  the  strip  of  foil,  the 
South  Sea  Islander's  fancy  of  the  talking  chip  seems  hardly 
unreasonable. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

ARTS    OF   LIFE. 

Development  of  Instruments,  1S3 — Club,  Hammer,  184— Stone-flake, 
^85 — Hatchet,  lS8 — Sabre,  Knife,  189 — Spear,  Dagger,  Sword, 
190 — Carpenter's  Tools,  192 — Missiles,  Javelin,  193 — Sling, 
Spear-thrower,  194 — Bow  and  Arrow,  195 — Blow-tube,  Gun,  196 — • 
Mechanical  Power,  197 — Wheel  carriage,  198— Hand-mill,  200 — 
Drill,  Lathe,  202 — Screw,  203 — Water-mill,  Wind-mill,   204. 

The  arts  by  which  man  defends  and  maintains  himself, 
and  holds  rule  over  the  world  he  lives  in,  depend  so  much 
on  his  use  of  instruments,  that  it  will  be  well  to  begin  with 
some  account  of  tools  and  weapons,  tracing  them  from 
their  earliest  and  rudest  forms. 

Man  is  sometimes  called,  to  distinguish  him  from  all 
lower  creatures,  the  "tool- using  animal."  This  distinction 
holds  good  in  a  general  way,  marking  off  man  with  his 
spear  and  hatchet  from  the  bull  goring  with  his  horns,  or 
the  beaver  carpentering  with  his  teeth.  But  it  is  instructive 
to  see  how  plainly  the  ape  tribes,  coming  nearest  to 
ourselves  in  having  hands,  have  also  rudiments  of  the 
implement-using  faculty.  Untaught  by  man,  they  defend 
themselves  with  missiles,  as  when  orangs  in  the  durian 
trees    furiously    pelt    passers-by    with    the    thorny    fruit. 


CHAP.  VIII.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  183 

The  chimpanzee  in  the  forests  is  said  to  crack  nuts  with  a 
stone,  as  in  our  Zoological  Gardens  monkeys  are  often 
taught  to  do  by  the  keepers,  where  they  take  readily  to 
the  use  of  these  and  more  difficult  implements,  as  soon  as 
the  thought  has  been  put  into  their  minds. 

The  lowest  order  of  implements  are  those  which  nature 
provides  ready-made,  or  wanting  just  a  finish ;  such  are 
pebbles  for  slinging  or  hammering,  sharp  stone  splinters 
to  cut  or  scrape  with,  branches  for  clubs  and  spears,  thorns 
or  teeth  to  pierce  with.  These  of  course  are  oftenest  found 
in  use  among  savages,  yet  they  sometimes  last  on  in  the 
clvili/ed  world,  as  when  we  catch  up  any  stick  to  kill  a  rat 
or  snake  with,  or  when  in  the  south  of  France  women 
shell  the  almonds  with  a  smooth  pebble,  much  as  the  apes 
at  Regent's  Park  would  do.  The  higher  implements 
used  by  mankind  are  often  plainly  improvements  on 
some. natural  object,  but  they  are  adapted  by  art  in  ways 
that  beasts  have  no  notion  of,  so  that  it  is  a  better  definition 
of  man  to  call  him  the  "  tool-maker  "  than  the  "  tool-user." 
Looking  at  the  various  sorts  of  implements,  we  see  that 
they  were  not  invented  all  at  once  by  sudden  flashes  of 
genius,  but  evolved,  or  one  might  almost  say  grown, 
by  small  successive  changes.  It  will  be  noticed  also  that 
the  instrument  which  at  first  did  roughly  several  kinds  of 
work,  afterwards  varied  off  in  different  ways  to  suit  each 
particular  purpose,  so  as  to  give  rise  to  several  different 
instruments.  A  Zulu  seen  at  work  scraping  the  stick  that 
is  to  be  the  shaft  of  his  assegai,  with  the  very  iron  head 
that  is  to  be  fixed  on  it,  may  give  an  idea  what  early  tool- 
making  was  like,  before  men  clearly  understood  that  the 
pattern  of  instrument  suitable  for  a  lance-head  was  not  the 
best  for  cutting  and  scraping.  We  should  be  horrified  at  the 
thought  of  the  blacksmith    pulling  out  one  of  our  teeth 


l84  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [CHAP. 

with  his  pincers,  as  our  forefathers  would  have  let  him  do  ; 
the  forceps  we  expect  the  dentist  to  use  is  indeed  a 
variety  of  the  smith's  tool,  but  it  is  a  special  variety 
for  a  special  purpose.  Thus  in  the  history  of  instruments, 
the  tools  of  the  mechanic  cannot  well  be  kept  separate  from 
the  weapons  of  the  hunter  or  soldier,  for  in  several  cases  it 
will  be  seen  that  both  tool  and  weapon  had  their  origin  in 
some  earlier  instrument  that  served  alike  to  break  skulls 
and  cocoa-nuts,  or  to  hack  at  the  limbs  of  trees  and 
of  men. 

Among  the  simplest  of  weapons  is  the  thick  stick  or 
cudgel,  which  when  heavier  or  knobbed  passes  into  the 
club.  Rude  champions  have  delighted  in  the  ferocious 
roughness  of  such  a  gnarled  club  as  Herkules  in  the  pictures 
carries  on  his  shoulder,  while  others  spent  their  leisure  hours 
in  elegant  shaping  and  carving,  like  that  of  the  South  Sea 
Island  clubs  to  be  seen  in  museums.  From  savage  through 
barbaric  times  the  war-club  lasted  on  into  the  middle  ages 
of  Europe,  when  knights  still  smashed  helmets  in  with 
their  heavy  maces.  Mostly  used  as  a  weapon,  it  only  now 
and  then  appears  in  peaceful  arts,  as  in  the  ribbed  clubs 
with  which  the  Polynesian  women  beat  out  bark  cloth. 
It  is  curious  to  see  how  the  rudest  of  primitive  weapons, 
after  its  serious  warlike  use  has  ceased,  survives  as  a 
symbol  of  power,  when  the  mace  is  carried  as  emblem 
of  the  royal  authority,  and  is  laid  on  the  table  during 
the  sitting  of  Parliament  or  the  Royal  Society.  While 
the  club  has  been  generally  a  weapon,  the  hammer  has 
bjen  generally  an  implement.  Its  history  begins  with 
the  smooth  heavy  pebble  held  in  the  hand,  such  as 
African  blacksmiths  to  this  day  forge  their  iron  with,  on 
another  smooth  stone  as  anvil.  It  was  a  great  imj)rove- 
ment  to  fasten  the  stone  hammer  on  a  handle ;  this  v.'as 


VIII.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


185 


done  in  very  ancient  times,  as  is  seen  by  the  stone  heads 
being  grooved  or  bored  on  purpose  (see  Fig.  54/).  Though 
the  iron  hammer  has  superseded  these,  a  trace  of  the  oldei 
use  of  stone  remains  in  our  very  name  /laiiu/ier,  which  is  the 
old  Scandinavian  /uv/tarr,  meaning  both  rock  and  hammer. 
From  beating  we  come  to  hacking  and  cutting.  At  the 
earliest  times  known  of  man's  life  on  the  earth,  his  pointed 
and  edged  instruments  of  sharp  stone  are  among  his  chief 
relics.  Even  in  the  mammoth-period  he  had  already 
learnt  not  to  be  content  with  accidental  chips  of  flint,  but 


Fig.  52. — Gunfl.nt-maker's  core  and  flakes  (Evans). 

knew  how  to  knock  off  two-edged  flakes.  This  art  of  flaking 
flint  or  other  suitable  stones  is  the  foundation  of  stone- 
implement  making.  Perhaps  the  best  idea  of  it  may  be 
gained  from  the  Suffolk  gunflint  makers  who  at  this  day 
carry  on  the  primaeval  craft,  though  with  better  tools  and 
for  so  difTerent  a  purpose.  Fig.  52  shows  a  gunflint  maker's 
core  of  flint,  with  the  flakes  replaced  where  he  has  knocked 
them  off,  and  the  mark  of  the  blow  is  seen  which  brought 
away  each  flake.     The  flakes  made  by  Stone  Age  men  for 


i86 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


instruments  may  be  three-sided  like  the  Australian  flake 
in  Fig.  53  b.  But  tlie  more  convenient  flat-backed  shape 
a^  L\  has  been  used  from  the  earliest  known  times.  The 
flint  core,  Fig.  ^\f,  with  the  flakes  e  taken  from  it,  shows 
how  by  previous  flaking  or  trimming  it  was  prepared  for 
the  new  flake  to  come  off  with  a  suitable  back.      The  finest 


Cb  1}  0 

Fig.  53. — Stone  Flakes: — a,  Palteolithic  ;  b,  Modern  Australia :  <r,  Ancient  Denmark. 


flakes  are  those  not  struck  off",  but  forced  off  by  pressure 
with  a  flaking-tool  of  wood  or  horn.  The  neat  Danish  flake, 
Fig.  53  <r,  was  no  doubt  made  so,  and  the  still  more  beautiful 
sharp  flakes  of  obsidian  with  which  the  native  barbers  of 
Mexico,  to  the  astonishment  of  Cortes'  soldiers,  used  to 
shave.  A  stone  flake  just  as  struck  off  may  be  fit  for  use 
as  a  knife,  or  as  a  spear  head  like  that  in  Fig.  58  «  ;  or  by 
further  chipping  it  may  be  made  into  a  scraper,  arrowhead, 
or  awl,  like  those  in  Fig.  54. 


VIII.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


187 


The  oldest  known  tribes  of  men  have  left  in   the   drift 
gravels   of  the   quaternary    or   mammoth-period   not    only 


Fig.  54. — Later  Stone  Age  (neolithic)  implement';,  a.  ^tone  celt  or  hatchet ;  h.  flint 
spear-head  ;  c.  scraper  ;  d.  .irrnw-heads;  e,  flint  flake-knives  ;  /.  core  from  wh.ch 
flint-flakes  taken  o£F  ;  g,  flint-awl ;  /;,  flint  saw ;   /,  stone  hammer-head. 

rough  flakes  like  Fig.  53  a,  but  the  stone  implements  already 
mentioned  in  the  first  chapter,  of  which  the  drawing  is  here 


Fig.  55. — Earlier  Stone  Age  (palaeolithic)  flint  picks  or  hatchets. 


repeated  in  Fig.  55.  Chipped  to  an  edge  all  round,  they 
may  have  served  with  the  pointed  end  as  picks  and  the 
broad   end   as  hatchets.      It  is  not  clear  whether  any  of 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


them  were  fixed  in  handles,  but  there  are  specimens  found 
which  have  only  one  end  chipped  to  a  point,  but  the  other 
end  of  the  flint  left  smooth,  so  that  they  were  evidently 
grasped  in  the  hand  to  hack  with.  There  is  nothing  to  show 
that  these  men  of  the  old  drift-period  ever  ground  a  stone 
implement  to  an  edge.  Thus  their  stone  implements  were 
far  inferior  to  the  neatly-shaped  and  sharp- edged  ground 
celts  of  the  later  Stone  Age,  Fig.  54  ^,  Fig.  56  ^.  The 
word  celt  used  for  the  various  chisel-like  instruments  of  rude 
and  ancient  tribes  is  a  convenient  term,  taken  from  Latin 


Fig.  56. — Stone  Axes,  &c.  a.  potshed  stone  celt  (lingland);  h.  pebble  grnunl  to 
edge  and  mounted  in  twig  handle  (modern  Botocudo.  Brazil);  <",  celt  fixel  in 
•wooden  club  (Ireland);  </,  stone  axe  bored  for  lia..dle  (England);  e,  slone  adze 
(modern  Polynesia). 


celtis,  a  chisel,  in  the  Vulgate  translation  of  Job  xix.  24, 
"  celte  sculpantur  in  silice ; "  but  it  has  been  thought  that 
"graven  with  a  chisel  {ccltc)  in  the  rock"  is  only  a  copyist's 
blunder  for  "  graven  surely  {ccrtc)  in  the  rock  ; "  and  if  so, 
then  celtis  and  celt  are  curious  fictitious  words.  It  may  be 
worth  while  to  mention  that  the  name  of  the  implements 
called  celts  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  name  of  the  people 
called  Celts  or  Kelts.     A  stone  celt  only  requires  a  handle 


VIII. J 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


189 


to  make  it  into  a  hatchet.  This  was  done  very  simply  by 
the  forest  Indians  of  Brazil,  who  would  pick  up  a  suitable 
water-worn  pebble,  rub  one  end  down  to  an  edgs,  and  bind 
it  in  a  twig.  Fig.  56  h.  Another  rude  way  of  mounting  a 
celt  was  to  stick  it  into  a  club,  so  as  to  form  a  woodman's 
or  warrior's  axe  such  as  ^,  which  shows  one  dug  out  of  a 
bog  in  Ireland.  The  most  advanced  method  was  to 
drill  a  hole  through  the  stone  blade  to  take  the  handle 
as  in  d.  When  the  stone  blade  is  fixed  with  the  edge 
across,  the  tool  becomes  a  carpenter's  adze,  as  e,  which  is 
the  instrument  used  by  the  canoe-building  Polynesians. 


Fig.  57. — a.  F.g^'ptian  battle-axe  :  h.  Egyptian  falchion  ;  c.  Asiatic  sabre; 
d,  iiuropean  sheaih-knife ;  e,  Roman  cuker  ;  /,  Hindu  bill-hook. 


When  metal  came  into  use,  the  forms  of  the  stone  imple- 
ments were  imitated  in  copper,  bronze,  or  iron,  and  though 
the  patterns  were  of  course  lightened  and  otherwise  improved 
to  suit  the  new  material,  it  may  be  plainly  seen  that  the 
stone  hatchets  and  spear-heads  in  museums  are  the  ancestors 
(so  to  speak)  of  the  metal  ones  made  ever  since.  But  also 
the  use  of  metal  brought  in  new  and  useful  forms  which 
stone  was  not  suited  to.  An  idea  of  these  important  changes 
may  be  gained  by  careful  looking  at  the  series  of  metal 


I90  ANTHROPOLCGY.  [chap. 

cutting-instruments  in  Fig,  57.  We  begin  with  a,  which  is 
an  Egyptian  bronze  battle-axe,  not  very  far  changed  from 
the  stone  hatchet.  But  b,  the  bronze  falchion  carried  also 
by  Egyptian  warriors,  is  a  sort  of  axe-blade  with  the  handle 
not  at  the  back,  but  shifted  down  ;  this  convenient  altera- 
tion could  not  have  been  made  in  the  stone  hatchet,  which 
would  have  broken  in  the  shank  at  the  first  blow,  while  in 
metal  it  answers  perfectly.  It  may  very  well  have  been  such 
transformed  hatchets  that  led  to  the  making  of  several  most 
important  classes  of  weapons  and  tools,  in  which  a  blade 
with  stout  back  and  front  edge  is  fixed  to  a  handle  below  it 
for  chopping,  slashing,  or  cutting.  Among  these  are  all  the 
various  forms  of  tlie  sabre  or  scimitar,  represented  by  c,  all 
our  ordinary  knives,  represented  here  by  the  European 
sheath-knife  d,  and  all  cleavers,  represented  by  the  Roman 
culter  e.  Nor  does  the  development  stop  here,  for  the  group 
of  instruments  to  which  our  bill-hook  belongs  is  made  with 
a  concave  edge,  as  in  the  Indian  form,  /,  and  this  again 
leads  on  to  the  still  more  curved  forms  of  the  sickle  and 
the  scythe,  which  are  not  drawn  here.  Thus  there  is  some 
reason  to  suppose  that  all  these  instruments,  whether  tools 
or  weapons,  or  such  as,  like  the  bill-hooks  of  the  early 
English  and  the  modern  Malays,  served  alike  for  peace  and 
war,  may  have  all  originated  from  the  early  metal  hatchet> 
which  itself  is  derived  from  the  still  earlier  hatchet  of  stone. 
From  the  early  stone  spear-heads  another  set  of  weapons 
seem  to  have  gradually  arisen,  as  may  be  seen  in  Fig.  58. 
Looking  at  the  spear  from  the  Admiralty  Islands,  a,  the 
head  of  which  is  a  large  flake  of  obsidian,  it  is  plain  that 
such  a  spear,  when  the  shaft  is  broken  off  short,  becomes  a 
dagger.  In  fact  one  often  cannot  tell  whether  the  flint 
blades  of  shapes  like  b,  which  are  dug  up  in  Europe,  were 
intended  for  mounting  as  spears  or  as  daggers.      Now  the 


VIII.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


191 


brittleness  of  stone  was  against  the  use  of  stone  blades 
more  than  a  few  inches  long,  but  when  metal  came  in,  the 
blades  could  be  made  long,  taper,  and  sharp,  thus  developing 
into  two-edged  daggers  of  deadly  effect.  In  old  Egyptian 
pictures  warriors  are  seen  armed  with  spear  and  dagger, 
these  two  weapons  having  blades  of  similar  shape,  so 
that  the  dagger  may  be  described  as  a  large  spear-head 
with  a  hilt  to  grasp  in  the  hand.  It  seems  as  though  the 
metal  dagger,  by  further  lengthening,  passed  into  the  two- 
edged  sword,  a  weapon  impossible  in  stone.     To  give  an 


Fig.  58. — a.  Stone  spear-head  (Admiralty  Is.) ;  b,  stone  spear-head  or  dagger-blade 
(England);  c,  bronze  spear-head  (Denmark);  li,  bronze  dagger;  e,  bronze  leaf- 
shaped  sword. 


idea  how  this  may  have  come  about.  Fig.  58  shows  three 
specimens  from  the  bronze-period  of  Northern  Europe, 
where  it  is  seen  how  the  spear-head  c  may  have  been 
lengthened  into  the  dagger  d,  and  that  again  into  the  leaf- 
like sword  e.  Straight  two-edged  swords  may  of  course 
be  used  for  cut  or  thrust,  or  both.  But  on  placing  side 
by  side   a  one-edged  sabre  and  a  two-edgjd    broadsword 


192  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

or  rapier,  it  will  now  be  seen  that  though  both  are  called 
swords,  and  are  fitted  up  with  similar  hilts,  hand-guards, 
and  sheaths,  they  are  nevertheless  two  weapons  of  separate 
nature  and  origin,  the  sabre  being  a  transformed  hatchet, 
while  the  rapier  is  a  transformed  spear.  This  last  spear- 
type,  of  which  one  modern  development  is  the  bayonet, 
has  mostly  served  for  warlike  purposes.  Yet  it  is  not  un- 
known as  a  peaceful  implement,  as  may  be  seen  in  African 
two-edged  knives,  which  are  evidently  derived  from  spear 
heads  ;  and  also  in  the  instrument  which  our  surgeons, 
conscious  of  its  original  model,  call  the  little  spear 
or  lancet. 

To  proceed  to  other  kinds  of  tools.  Thorns,  pointed 
splinters  of  bone,  or  flint  flakes  worked  to  a  point 
(Fig.  54^),  served  early  tribes  of  men  as  borers.  The  saw 
probably  invented  itself  from  a  jagged  flint  flake,  which 
afterwards  became  the  more  artificial  flint  saw.  Fig.  54//. 
Thus  the  men  of  the  Stone  Age  had  in  rude  and  early  forms 
some  of  the  principal  tools,  which  were  improved  upon  in 
the  ages  of  metal.  It  is  interesting  to  look  in  Wilkinson's 
Ancient  Egyptians  at  the  contents  of  the  Egyptian  car- 
penter's tool-basket,  where  the  bronze  adze,  saw,  chisels, 
&c.  show  traces  of  likeness  to  the  old  stone  implements. 
On  the  other  hand,  this  Egyptian  set  of  tools,  and  still  more 
those  of  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  carpenters,  come 
remarkably  near  those  we  are  using  at  this  day.  One 
difference  which  kept  the  ancient  carpenters  below  ours  was 
that  they  had  not  got  beyond  nails,  never  having  seized  the 
idea  of  the  screws  which  are  so  essential  to  modern  con- 
struction, nor  of  such  tools  as  the  screw-auger  and  gimlet, 
which  depend  on  the  sqrew  for  their  action.  Among  the 
ancient  cultured  nations  of  Egypt  and  Assyria,  handicrafts 
had    already    come    to    a    stage    which    could   only  have 


VIII.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  193 

been  reached  by  thousands  of  years  of  progress.  In 
museums  may  still  be  examined  the  work  of  their  joiners, 
stonecutters,  goldsmiths,  wonderful  in  skill  and  finish,  and 
often  putting  to  shame  the  modern  artificer.  Of  course 
these  results  were  obtained  by  the  ancient  craftsman  with 
what  we  should  consider  a  wasteful  expenditure  of  labour. 
The  use  of  steel  and  other  improvements  have  given  the 
modern  workman  great  advantages,  and  what  is  more,  the 
modern  world  has  utterly  outstripped  the  ancient  in  the 
use  of  machines,  as  will  be  more  fuhy  seen  presently 
when  the  examination  of  the  simpler  instruments  has  been 
gone  through. 

To  continue  the  survey  of  weapons.  The  cudgel  or  club 
is  hurled  by  the  hunter  or  warrior,  as  when  the  Zulu  will 
bring  down  an  antelope  at  a  surprising  distance  with  a 
throw  of  his  round-headed  club  or  knob-kerry,  and  the 
Turk  till  modern  times  used  to  throw  his  mace  in  battle. 
The  sporting  use  outlasts  the  warlike,  and  even  in  England 
the  fowler's  throwing-cudgel  is  not  unknown  in  country 
parts,  where  it  is  called  a  squoyle.  A  flat  thin  club  made 
curved  or  crooked  by  following  the  branch  it  is  cut  out  of 
has  been  liked  by  sportsmen  of  various  nations  for  its 
destructive  whirling  flight,  as  where  the  old  Egyptian  fowler 
may  be  seen  in  the  pictures  flinging  his  flat  curved  throw- 
slick  into  the  midst  of  a  flight  of  wild  duck.  The  Australians 
not  only  throw  wooden  clubs  and  blades  as  weapons  in 
this  ordinary  way,  but  make  and  throw  with  surprising  skill 
a  peculiar  light  curved  blade  which  has  been  called  the 
"come-back"  boomerang,  which  veers  in  its  course  and 
returns  to  the  thrower,  in  ways  which  may  be  seen  by 
cutting  boomerangs  out  of  a  visiting-card  and  flipping  them. 
Again,  it  is  evident  that  stones  flung  by  hand  must  have 
been  among  man's  first  weapons.     A  simple  instrument  for 

14 


194  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

lengLhening  the  arm  and  accumulating  momentum  is  the 
sling,  which  is  so  generally  known  even  among  the  lowest 
tribes  of  man,  that  it  is  probably  of  great  antiquity. 

The  rudest  spear,  which  is  a  mere  pointed  stick,  is  known 
everywhere  in  the  savage  world,  the  point  being  often  hard- 
ened by  thrusting  it  into  the  fire.  Of  spears,  whether  such 
clumsy  sticks  or  more  artificially  pointed  weapons,  the  heavier 
kinds  serve  for  thrusting  and  the  lighter  for  throwing,  while 
intermediate  sizes  are  fit  for  both  purposes.  It  is  obvious 
how,  to  prevent  the  spear  from  coming  out  of  the  wound, 
it  came  to  be  barbed.  Another  device,  known  widely  among 
rude  hunters  and  fishers,  is  to  put  the  point  loosely  on  to 
the  shaft,  attaching  it  by  a  cord  of  some  length  which 
uncoils  when  the  points  sticks  in  the  animal  and  the  shaft 


Fig.  59. — Australian  spear  thrown  with  spear-thrower  (after  Erough  Smyth). 

drops  off,  so  that  the  struck  beast  cannot  break  away  the 
shaft  but  drags  it  trailing,  or  the  fish  is  held  and  marked 
down  by  the  floating  wood.  The  distance  to  which  the  spear 
can  be  hurled  by  hand  is  much  increased  by  using  a  spear- 
thrower,  acting  like  a  sling.  In  Captain  Cook's  time  the  New 
Caledonians  slung  their  spears  with  a  short  cord  with  an  eye 
for  the  finger,  while  the  Roman  soldiers  had  a  thong  {amen- 
tum) made  fast  to  their  javelins  near  the  middle  of  the  shaft 
for  the  same  purpose.  But  wooden  spear-throwers  from  one 
to  three  feet  long,  grasped  at  one  end  and  with  a  peg  or 
notch  at  the  other  to  take  the  butt  of  the  spear,  have  been 
more  favourite  with  savage  and  barbaric  races.  Thus 
Fig.  59  shows  the  Australian  spear-thrower.     This  looks  a 


VIII.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  195" 

more  primitive  instrument  than  the  bow,  which  indeed  was 
not  known  to  these  rude  savages.  It  seems  as  though  with 
the  progress  of  weapons  the  spear-thrower  was  discarded, 
for  it  is  not  found  among  any  nation  higher  than  the 
old  IMexicans,  and  even  among  them  it  seems  to  have 
been  kept  up  ceremonially  from  old  times,  rather  than 
seriously  used.  The  bow  and  arrow  (as  General  Pitt- 
Rivers  suggests)  may  very  likely  have  grown  out  of  a  simpler 
contrivance,  the  spring-trap  set  in  the  woods  by  fitting  a 
dart  to  an  elastic  branch,  so  fastened  back  as  to  be  let  go 
by  a  passing  animal,  in  whose  track  it  discharges  the 
weapon.  However  invented,  the  bow  came  into  use  in 
ages  before  history.  Its  arrow  is  a  miniature  of  the  full- 
sized  javelin,  and  the  old  stone  arrow-heads  found  in  most 
regions  of  the  world  (see  Fig.  54^/)  show  the  existence  of 
the  bow-and -arrow  in  the  Stone  Age,  though  hardly  back 
to  the  drift-period.  The  art  of  feathering  the  arrow  goes 
back  as  far  as  history,  and  we  know  not  how  much  further. 
The  simplest  kind  of  longbow  is  like  that  we  still  use  in 
the  sport  of  archery,  made  of  one  piece  of  tough  wood. 
Fig.  60  a  shows  a  long-bow  of  the  forest-tribes  of  South 
America,  unstrung,  with  its  string  hanging  loose.  AVhat 
may  be  called  the  Tatar  or  Scythian  bow  is  formed  of 
several  pieces  of  wood  or  horn,  united  with  glue  and  sinews. 
Shorter  than  the  long-bow,  it  gets  its  spring  by  being 
bent  outside-in  to  string  it ;  thus  the  concave  side  of  the 
ancient  Scythian-bow  b  would  become  the  convex  side  when 
strung.  Bows  of  this  class  belong  especially  to  northern 
regions  where  there  is  a  scarcity  of  tough  wood  suited  to 
making  long-bows  in  one  piece.  As  a  warlike  weapon, 
the  bow  lasted  on  in  Europe  through  the  middle  ages,  and 
as  late  as  181 4  the  world  looked  on  with  wonder  to  see  the 
Cossack  cavalrv  ride  armed  with  bows-and-arrows  throueh 


196 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap; 


the  streets  of  Paris.  A  further  step  in  the  history  of  the 
bow  was  to  mount  it  on  a  stock,  so  as  to  take  aim  at  leisure 
and  touch  a  trigger  to  let  go  the  string.  Thus  it  became 
the  cross-bow,  which  seems  to  have  been  invented  in  the 
East,  and  was  known  in  Roman  Europe  about  the  sixth 
century.  In  the  figure,  c  represents  it  in  its  perfected  form 
with  a  winch  to  draw  the  bow,  as  soldiers  used  it  in  the 


Fi-7.  60. — B^ws.     a.  South  American  long-bow  (unstruni;)  ;  /■,  'I'aiar  or  Scythian 
bow;  c,  European  cross-bow 

sixteenth  century.     Cross-bows  are  still  made  in  Italy  for 
shooting  birds  with  a  bolt  or  pellet. 

To  understand  the  next  great  move  in  missile  weapons, 
it  is  necessary  to  look  back  to  savage  life.  The  blow-tube, 
through  which  the  forest  Indian  of  South  America  (Fig.  43) 
blows  his  tiny  poisoned  plug-darts,  or  the  similar  Malay 
weapon  called  the  sumpitan,  may  have  been  easily  invented 


viii.j  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  i97 

wherever  long  large  reeds  grew.  With  simple  darts  or 
pellets  the  blow-tube  served  for  shooting  birds,  ana  it  is 
often  kept  up  as  a  toy,  as  in  our  boys'  peashooters.  ^Vhen, 
however,  gunpowder  was  invented  in  China,  its  use  w-as  soon 
adapted,  to  make  the  blow-tube  an  instrument  of  tremendous 
power,  when  instead  of  the  puff  of  breath  in  a  reed,  the 
explosion  of  powder  in  an  iron  barrel  drove  out  the 
missile.  In  the  early  guns  of  the  middle  ages,  the  powder 
was  fired  by  putting  a  coal  or  match  to  the  touchhole,  as 
continued  to  be  done  till  lately  with  cannon.  For  hand- 
guns, this  early  match-lock  was  followed  by  the  wheel-lock. 
This  led  up  to  the  thnt-lock,  which  it  is  curious  to  compare 
with  the  cross-bow,  for  the  bent  bow  released  b\-  the  trigger, 
which  in  the  cross-bow  did  the  actual  work  of  shooting 
out  the  missile,  has  now  come  down,  in  the  form  of  a  spring 
and  trigger,  to  the  subordinate  use  of  striking  the  light  to 
ignite  the  powder  which  actually  propels  the  ball  In  more 
modern  guns,  the  trigger  and  spring  still  remain,  the  im- 
provement lying  in  the  use  of  fulminating  silver  in  the  cap, 
ignited  by  the  blow  of  the  hammer.  The  rifling  of  the 
bullet  by  means  of  grooves  in  the  barrel  is  the  modern 
representative  of  the  ancient  plan  of  slightly  twisting  the 
spear-head  or  feathering  the  arrow  to  cause  it  to  rotate,  this 
giving  increased  steadiness  of  flight.  The  modern  conical 
shot  shows  a  partial  return  from  the  spherical  bullet  towards 
the  ancient  bolt  or  arrow,  and  at  last  breech-loading  goes 
back  to  the  old  plan  of  putting  the  arrows  in  at  the  butt- 
end  of  the  savage  blow  tube. 

As  thus  plainly  appears,  the  ingenuity  of  man  has  been 
eminent  in  the  art  of  destroying  his  fellowmen.  In  survey- 
ing the  last  group  of  deadly  weapons,  from  the  stone  hurled 
by  hand  to  the  rifled  cannon,  there  comes  well  into  view 
one  of  the  great  advances  of  culture.     This  is  the  progress 


193  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

from  the  simple  tool  or  implement,  such  as  the  club  or 
knife,  which  enables  man  to  strike  or  cut  more  effectively 
than  with  hands  or  teeth,  to  the  machine  which,  when 
supplied  with  force,  only  needs  to  be  set  and  directed  by 
man  to  do  his  work.  Man  often  himself  provides  the  power 
which  the  machine  distributes  more  conveniently,  as  when 
the  potter  turns  the  wheel  with  his  own  foot,  using  his 
hands  to  mould  the  whirling  clay.  The  highest  class  of 
machines  are  those  which  are  driven  by  the  stored-up  forces 
of  nature,  like  the  saw-mill  where  the  running  stream  does 
the  hard  labour,  and  the  sawyer  has  only  to  provide  the 
timber  and  direct  the  cutting. 

As  to  how  simple  mechanical  powers  were  first  learnt,  it 
is  of  no  use  to  guess  in  what  rude  and  early  age  men  found 
that  stones  or  blocks  too  weighty  to  lift  by  hand  could  be 
prized  up  and  moved  along  with  a  stout  stick,  or  rolled  on 
two  or  three  round  poles,  or  got  up  a  long  gentle  slope  more 
easily  than  up  a  short  steep  rise.  Thus  such  discoveries  as 
those  of  the  lever,  roller,  and  inclined  plane,  are  quite  out  of 
historical  reach.  The  ancient  Egyptians  used  wedges  to 
split  off  their  huge  blocks  of  stone,  and  one  wonders  that, 
knowing  the  pulley  as  they  did,  it  never  appears  in  the  rigging 
of  their  ships  (see  Fig.  71).  A  draw-well  with  a  pulley  is 
to  be  seen  in  the  Assyrian  sculptures,  where  also  a  huge 
winged  bull  is  being  heaved  along  with  levers,  and  dragged 
on  a  sledge  with  rollers  laid  underneath. 

The  wheel-carriage,  which  is  among  the  most  important 
machines  ever  contrived  by  man,  must  have  been  invented 
in  ages  before  history.  To  see  what  constructive  skill  the 
leading  nations  had  already  attained  to  in  times  we  reckon 
as  of  high  antiquity,  it  is  worth  while  to  examine  closely 
the  Egyptian  war-chariots,  with  their  neatly-fitted  and  firmly- 
tired  spoke-wheels  turning  on  their  axles  secured  by  liiach- 


VIIT.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


199 


pins,  while  the  body,  pole,  and  double  harness  show  equal 
technical  skill.  In  looking  for  some  hint  as  to  how  wheel- 
carriages  came  to  be  invented,  it  is  of  little  use  to  judge 
from  such  high  skilled  work  as  was  turned  out  by  these 
Egyptian  chariot-builders,  or  by  the  Roman  carpentarii  or 
carriage-builders  from  whom  our  carpenters  inherit  their 
name.  But  as  often  happens,  rude  contrivances  may  be 
found  which  look  as  though  they  belonged  to  the  early 
stages  of  the  invention.  The  plaustrum  or  farm-cart 
of  the  ancient  world  in  its  rudest  form  had  for  wheels  two 


Fig.  61. — Ancient  bullock-waggon,  from  the  Antonine  Column. 

solid  wooden  drums  near  a  foot  thick,  and  made  from  a 
tree-trunk  cut  across,  which  drums  or  wheels  did  not  turn 
on  the  axle  but  were  fixed  to  it ;  the  axle  was  kept  in  place 
by  wooden  stops,  or  passed  through  rings  at  the  bottom 
of  the  cart,  and  went  round  together  with  its  pair  of  wheels, 
as  children's  toy  carts  are  made.  It  is  curious  to  notice 
how,  under  changed  conditions,  the  builders  of  railway- 
carriages  have  returned  to  this  early  construction.  In  the 
ancient  cart,  Fig.  6t,  the  squared  end  of  the  axle  shows 
that  it  must  turn  with  the  wheels.      In    such  countries  as 


100 


ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 


Portugal  the  old  classic  bullock-cart  on  this  principle  is  still 
to  be  seen,  and  it  has  been  reasonably  guessed  that  such 
carts  tell  the  story  how  wheel-carriages  came  to  be  invented. 
Rollers  were  early  used,  on  which  a  block  of  stone  or  other 
heavy  weight  was  trundled.  Suppose  such  a  roller  made  of 
a  smoothed  tree-trunk  to  be  improved  by  cutting  the  middle 
part  smaller,  so  that  it  became  an  axle  and  pair  of  broad 
wheels  in  one  piece,  then  by  making  this  axle  work  under- 
neath the  rudest  framework,  the  simplest  imaginable  wheel- 
carriage  is  made.  If  the  first  notion  of  a  cart  were 
thus  suggested,  the  wheels  might  afterwards  be  made 
separately  and  pinned  on  to  the  square  axle,  and  provided 
■with  tires.  Then,  for  light  wheels  and  smooth  ground,  the 
wheels  would  at  last  be  made  to  turn  on  fixed  axles.  This 
is  only  conjecture,  but  at  any  rate  it  puts  clearly  before  our 
minds  what  the  nature  of  a  carriage  is. 

Another  ancient  machine  is  the  mill.  The  rudest  tribes 
of  savages  had  a  simple  and  effective  means  ready  to  hand 
for  powdering  charcoal  and  ochre  to  paint  themselves  with, 
or  for  the  more  useful  w-ork  of  bruising  wild  seeds  gathered 
for  food.  The  whole  apparatus  consists  of  a  roundish  stone 
held  in  the  hand,  and  a  larger  hollowed  stone  for  a  bed.  It 
is  curious  to  notice  how  closely  our  pestle  and  mortar  still 
keeps  to  this  primitive  type.  Now  any  one  using  the  pestle 
and  mortar  may  notice  that  it  works  in  two  ways,  the  stuff 
being  either  pounded  by  striking,  or  ground  by  rubbing 
against  the  side  of  the  mortar.  When  people  took  to 
agriculture,  and  grain  became  a  chief  part  of  their  food, 
and  mealing  it  the  women's  heavy  work,  forms  of  mealing- 
stones  came  into  use  suited  not  for  pounding  but  for  grind- 
ing only,  and  doing  this  more  perfectly.  An  example  may 
be  seen  in  Fig.. 62,  a  rude  ancient  corn-crusher  dug  up  in 
Anglesey,  the  stone  muller  or  roller  having  its  sides  hollowed 


VIII.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  201 

for  the  hands  of  the  grinder,  who  worked  it  back  and  for- 
ward on  the  bed-stone.  The  perfection  of  such  a  corn- 
crusher  may  be  seen  in  the  "metate  "  with  its  neatly  shaped 
bed  and  rolhng-pin  of  lava,  with  which  the  Mexican  women 
crush  the  maize  for  their  corn- cakes  or  tortillas.  But  it  is 
by  one  stone  revolving  upon  the  other  that  grain  is  best 
ground,  and  here  we  have  the  principle  of  the  mill.  The 
quern  or  hand-mill  of  the  ancient  world  in  its  simi:)le  form 
consisted  of  two  circular  flat  mill  stones,  the  upper  being 
turned  by  a  liandle,  while  the  grain  was  poured  in  through 
the  hole  in  the  centre,  and  came  out  as  meal  all  round  the 
edge.     This  early  hand-mill  has  lasted  on  into  the  modern 


Fig.  62. — Corn-crusher,  Anglesey  (after  W.  O.  Stanley  , 


world,  and  Fig.  6^  shows  "  two  women  grinding  at  the  mill," 
as  they  might  be  seen  in  the  Hebrides  in  the  last  century; 
the  long  stick,  which  hangs  from  a  branch  above,  has  its  end 
in  a  hole  in  the  upper  stone,  and  a  cloth  is  spread  on  the 
ground  to  catch  the  meal.  The  quern  is  still  used  in  north 
Scotland  and  the  islands.  If  the  reader  will  notice  the 
construction  of  a  modern  flour-mill,  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
neatly  faced  and  grooved  millstones  are  now  of  great  weight, 
and  the  upper  one  balanced  on  the  pivot  which  gives  it  rapid 
rotation  from  below  by  means  of  water  or  steam-power, 
but  notwithstanding  these  mechanical  improvements,  the 
essential  principle  of  the  primitive  hand-mill  is  still  there. 


203  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Another  group  of  revolving  tools  and  machines  begins 
with  the  drill.  The  simplest  mode  of  twirling  the  boring- 
stick  between  the  hands  is  to  be  seen  in  fire-making  (Fig. 
72).  In  this  clumsy  way  rude  tribes  know  how  to  bore 
holes  through  hard  stone  by  patiently  twirling  a  reed  or 
stick  with  sharp  sand  and  water.  This  primitive  tool  was 
improved  both  for  making  fire  and  boring  holes,  by  winding 


Fig.  63. — Hebrides  women  grinding  with  the  quern  or  hand-mill  (after  Pennant). 

round  the  stick  a  thong  or  cord,  which  by  being  pulled 
backward  and  forward  worked  the  drill,  as  the  ancient  ship- 
wrights boring  their  timbers  are  described  in  the  Odyssey 
(ix.  384).  The  ingenious  plan  of  using  a  bow  with  its  string 
to  drive  the  drill,  so  that  one  man  can  manage  it,  was  already 
known  in  the  old  Egyptian  workshops,  but  the  still  more 
perfect  Archimedean  drill  is  modern.      The  turning-lathe 


VIII,]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  203 

seems  to  have  bad  its  origin  in  the  drill.  To  those  who  have 
only  seen  the  lathe  in  its  improved  modern  forms  this  may 
not  be  clear,  but  it  is  seen  by  lookitjg  at  the  old-fashioned 
pole-lathe  with  which  the  turner  used  to  shape  his  wooden 
bowls  and  chair-legs,  which  were  made  to  revolve  by  a  cord 
pulled  up  and  down,  on  somewhat  the  same  principle  as  the 
Homeric  drill.  The  foot-lathe,  with  its  crank  and  con- 
tinuous revolution,  superseded  this,  to  be  itself  encroached 
upon  by  the  introduction  of  steam-power  for  driving,  and 
even  for  applying  the  tool  in  the  self-acting  lathe. 

In  examining  these  groups  of  instruments  and  machines, 
the  development  of  many  of  them  has  been  traced  back 
till  their  origins  are  lost  in  dim  pite-historic  ages,  or  to 
where  ancient  history  can  show  them  arising  from  a  fresh 
idea  or  a  new  turn  given  to  an  old  one.  It  is  seldom  pos- 
sible to  get  at  the  real  author  of  an  ancient  invention. 
Thus  no  one  knows  exactly  when  and  how  that  wonderful 
mechanical  contrivance,  the  screw,  appeared.  It  was  fami- 
liar to  the  Greek  mathematicians,  and  the  screw  linen- 
presses  and  oil-presses  of  classic  times  look  almost  modern 
in  their  construction.  In  the  period  of  ancient  civilization 
there  appear  the  beginnings  of  that  immense  change  which 
is  remodelling  modern  life,  by  inventions  which  set  the 
forces  of  nature  to  do  man's  heavy  work  for  him.  This 
great  change  seems  to  have  been  especially  brought  on  by 
contrivances  to  save  the  heavy  toil  of  watering  the  fields. 
A  simple  hand-labour  contrivance  of  this  kind  is  the  shadoof 
of  the  Nile  valley,  where  a  long  pole  with  a  counterpoise 
at  one  end  is  supported  on  posts,  and  carries  a  bucket 
hanging  to  the  longer  end  to  dip  up  water  from  below. 
One  need  not  travel  to  the  East  to  watch  this  old  con- 
trivance, for  it  is  to  be  seen  at  work  in  our  brickfields. 
For   irrigation,    it   was   mechanically   an  improvement   on 


204  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

this  to  set  a  gang  of  slaves  to  turn  a  great  wheel  with 
buckets  or  earthen  jars  at  its  circumference,  which  rose 
full  from  the  water  below,  and  as  they  turned  over 
emptied  themselves  into  a  trough  at  a  higher  level.  But 
when  such  a  wheel  was  built  to  dip  in  a  running  stream, 
then  the  current  itself  would  turn  the  wheel,  and  thus 
would  come  into  existence  the  noria  or  irrigating  water- 
wheel  often  mentioned  in  ancient  literature,  and  to  be 
seen  still  at  work  both  in  the  East  and  in  Europe.  By 
these  or  some  similar  steps  of  invention  the  water-wheel 
was  made  a  source  of  power  for  doing  other  work,  such  as 
grinding  corn,  instead  of  the  women  at  the  quern  or  the 
slaves  at  the  treadmill,  or  the  mill-horse  in  his  everlasting 
round.  As  the  Greek  epigram  says,  "  Cease  your  work,  ye 
maids  who  laboured  at  the  mills,  sleep  and  let  the  birds  sing 
to  the  returning  dawn,  for  Demeter  has  bidden  the  water 
nymphs  to  do  your  task  ;  obedient  to  her  call,  they  throw 
themselves  on  the  wheel  and  turn  the  axle  and  the  heavy 
mill."  The  classical  corn-mill,  with  the  cog-wheels  driven 
by  the  water-wheel,  may  have  been  a  good  deal  like  the 
water-mills  still  working  on  our  country  streams.  Such 
machinery  was  early  applied  to  grinding  corn,  and  after- 
wards to  other  manufactures,  so  that  now  the  word  mill 
no  longer  means  a  grinding-mill  only,  but  is  also  used 
where  machinery  is  driven  by  power  for  other  purposes. 
It  was  a  great  movement  in  civilization  for  the  water-mill 
and  its  companion  contrivance  the  wind-mill  to  come  into 
use  as  force-providers,  doing  all  sorts  of  labour,  from  the 
heaviest  work  of  the  European  factory  down  to  turning  the 
Tibetan  prayer-wheels,  which  go  round  repeating  for  ever 
the  sacred  Buddhist  formula.  AVithin  the  la^  century 
the  civilized  world  has  been  drawing  an  immense  supply  of 
power  from    a  new  source,    the   coal  burnt  in  the  furnace 


VIII.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  205 

of  the  steam-engine,  which  is  already  used  so  wastefully 
that  economists  are  uneasily  calculating  how  long  this 
stored-up  fossil  force  will  last,  and  what  must  be  turned  to 
next — tide  force  or  sun's  heat — to  labour  for  us.  Thus,  in 
modern  times,  man  seeks  more  and  more  to  change  the 
labourer's  part  he  played  in  early  ages,  for  the  higher  duly 
of  director  or  controller  of  the  world's  force. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

ARTS  OF  LIFE — {continued). 

Quest  of  Mild  food,  206 — Hunting,  207 — Trapping,  211 — Fishing, 
212 — Agriculture,  214 — Implements,  216 — Fields,  218 — Cattle, 
pasturage,  219 — War,  221 — Weapons,  221 — Armour,  222 — War- 
fare of  lower  t    bes,  223 — of  higher  nations,  225, 

Having,  in  the  last  chapter,  examined  the  instruments 
used  by  man,  we  have  next  to  look  at  the  arts  by  which  he 
maintains  and  protects  himself.  His  first  need  is  to  get  his 
daily  food.  In  tropical  forests,  savages  may  easily  live  on 
what  nature  provides,  like  the  Andaman  Islanders,  who 
gather  fruits  and  honey,  hunt  wild  pigs  in  the  jungle,  and  take 
turtle  and  fish  on  the  coast.  Many  forest  tribes  of  Brazil, 
though  they  cultivate  a  little,  depend  mostly  on  wild  food. 
Of  such  the  rude  man  has  no  lack,  for  there  is  game  in 
plenty  and  the  rivers  swarm  with  fish,  while  the  woods  yield 
him  a  supply  of  roots  and  bulbs,  calabashes,  palm-nuts, 
beans,  and  many  other  fruits  ;  he  collects  wild  honey,  birds' 
eggs,  grubs  out  of  rotten  wood,  nor  does  he  despise  insects, 
even  ants.  In  less  fertile  lands  savage  life  goes  on  well 
while  game  and  fish  abound,  but  when  these  fail  it  becomes 
an  unceasing  quest  for  food,  as  where  the  Australians  roam 
over  their  deserts  on  the  look-out  for  every  eatable  root  or 


CHAP.  IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  207 

insect,  or  the  low  Rocky  INIountain  tribes  gather  pine-nuts 
and  berries,  catch  snakes,  and  drag  lizards  out  of  their 
holes  with  a  hooked  stick.  The  P'uegians  wander  along 
their  bleak  inhospitable  shores  feeding  mostly  on  shell-fish, 
so  that  in  the  course  of  ages  their  shells,  with  fish-bones 
and  other  rubbish,  have  formed  long  banks  above  high- 
water  mark.  Such  shell-heaps  or  "kitchen-middens"  are 
found  here  and  there  all  round  the  coasts  of  the  world, 
marking  the  old  resorts  of  such  tribes ;  for  instance  on  the 
coast  of  Denmark,  where  archreologists  search  them  for 
relics  of  rude  Europeans,  who,  in  the  Stone  age,  led  a  life 
somewhat  like  that  of  Tierra  del  Fuego.  Hunting  and 
fishing  go  on  through  all  levels  of  society,  beginning  with 
the  savages  who  have  no  other  means  of  subsistence,  till  at 
last  among  civilized  nations  game  and  fish  hardly  do  more 
than  supplement  the  more  regular  supplies  of  grain  and 
meat  from  the  farm.  Looking  at  the  devices  of  the  hunter 
and  fisher,  it  will  be  seen  how  thoroughly  most  of  them 
belong  to  the  ruder  stages  of  culture. 

The  natives  of  the  Brazilian  forests,  to  whom  tracking 
game  is  the  chief  business  of  life,  do  it  with  a  skill  that 
fills  with  wonder  the  white  men  who  have  watched  them. 
The  Botocudo  hunter,  gliding  stealthily  through  the  under- 
wood, knows  every  habit  and  sign  of  bird  and  beast ;  the 
remains  of  berries  and  pods  show  him  what  creature  has 
fed  there  ;  he  knows  how  high  up  an  armadillo  displaces 
the  leaves  in  passing,  and  so  can  distinguish  its  track  from 
the  snake's  or  tortoise's,  and  follow  it  to  its  burrow  by  the 
scratches  of  its  scaly  armour  on  the  mud.  Even  the  sense 
of  smell  of  this  savage  hunter  is  keen  enough  to  help  him 
in  tracking.  Hidden  behind  the  trunk  of  a  tree,  he  can 
imitate  the  cries  of  birds  and  beasts  to  bring  them  within 
range  of  his  deadly  poisoned  arrow,  and  he  will  even  entice 


2oS  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap, 

the  alligator  Ijy  making  her  rough  eggs  grate  together  where 
they  lie  under  leaves  on  the  river-bank.  If  an  ape  he  has 
shot  high  in  the  boughs  of  some  immense  tree  remains 
hanging  by  its  tail,  he  will  go  up  after  it  by  a  hanging 
creeper  where  no  white  man  would  climb.  At  last,  laden 
with  game  and  useful  forest  things,  such  as  palm-fibre  to 
make  hammocks,  or  fruit  to  brew  liquor,  he  finds  his  way 
back  to  his  hut  by  the  sun  and  the  lie  of  the  ground,  and 
the  twigs  that  he  bent  back  for  way-marks  as  he  crept 
through  the  thicket.  In  Australia,  the  native  hunter  will 
lie  in  wait  behind  a  screen  of  boughs  near  a  water-hole  till 
the  kangaroos  come  to  drink,  or  will  track  one  in  the  open 
for  days,  camping  by  his  little  fire  at  night  to  be  ready  for 
the  pursuit  again  at  dawn,  keeping  unseen  and  to  the 
leeward  till  at  last  he  can  creep  near  enough  to  hurl  his 
spear,  seldom  in  vain.  When  the  natives  hunt  together, 
they  will  put  up  brush  fence  in  two  long  wings  converging 
towards  a  pit,  and  so  drive  the  kangaroos  into  it ;  or  they 
will  form  a  great  hunting  party  for  a  battue,  surrounding 
half  a  mile  of  bush-land,  and  with  shouts  and  clatter  of 
weapons  driving  all  the  game  to  the  centre  where  they  can 
close  round  and  despatch  them  with  spears  and  waddies. 
In  fovt'ling  the  Australians  show  equal  expertness.  A  native 
will  swim  under  water  breathing  through  a  reed,  or  will 
merely  cover  his  head  with  water-weed  till  he  gets  among  a 
flock  of  ducks,  which  one  by  one  he  noiselessly  pulls  under 
and  tucks  into  his  belt.  This  shows  in  a  simple  form  a  kind 
of  duck-hunting  which  is  found  in  such  distant  parts  of  the 
world,  that  travellers  have  been  puzzled  to  guess  whether 
the  idea  spread  from  one  tribe  to  another,  or  was  invented 
many  times.  It  may  be  seen  on  the  Nile,  where  a  harmless- 
looking  calabash  floats  in  among  the  water-fowl,  with  a 
swimming  Egyptian's  head  inside.     The  Australian  hunter 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  2og 

takes  the  wallaby  (a  small  kangaroo)  by  fastening  to  a  long 
rod  like  a  fishing-rod  a  hawk's  bkin  and  feathers,  making  the 
sham  bird  hover  with  its  proper  cry  till  it  drives  the  game 
into  a  bush  where  it  can  be  speared.  Of  devices  of  stalking 
with  an  imitated  animal,  one  of  the  most  perfect  is  that  of 
the  Dogrib  Indians,  when  a  pair  of  hunters  go  after  rein- 
deer; the  foremost  carries  a  reindeer's  head,  while  in  the 
other  hand  he  has  a  bunch  of  twigs  against  which  he  makes 
the  head  rub  its  horns  in  a  lifelike  way,  and  the  two  men, 
walking  as  the  deer's  fore  and  hind  legs,  get  among  the  herd 
and  bring  down  the  finest.  In  England,  till  of  late  years, 
fowlers  used  to  hide  behind  a  wooden  horse  moved  along 
on  wheels,  and  a  relic  of  this  survives  in  the  phrase  "  to 
make  a  stalking-horse  of  one,"  often  now  used  by  people 
who  have  no  idea  what  the  word  meant. 

Hunting  with  dogs  was  very  ancient,  and  was  found 
among  uncivilized  tribes ;  thus  the  Australians  seem  to  have 
trained  the  dingo  or  native  dog  for  the  chase,  and  most  of 
the  North  American  Indians  had  their  native  hunting-dogs. 
Still  dogs  were  not  so  universal  among  rude  tribes  as  they 
have  been  since  European  breeds  were  carried  all  over  the 
world  ;  for  instance,  the  natives  of  Newfoundland  seem  to 
have  had  no  dogs.  The  largest  and  fiercest  animal  whose 
instinct  of  prey  man  has  tiius  taken  advantage  of  is  the 
hunting-leopard  or  cheetah,  which  in  India  or  Persia  is 
carried  in  an  iron  cage  to  the  field  and  let  loose  upon  the 
deer;  when  it  has  pounced  on  the  game  the  huntsman 
draws  it  off  with  the  taste  of  blood  and  gives  it  a  leg  for 
its  share  in  the  partnership.  Already  in  classic  times  there 
is  mention  of  birds  of  prey  trained  to  strike  game-birds  or 
drive  them  into  the  net,  or  to  pounce  on  hares.  Hawking 
or  falconry  reached  its  height  as  a  royal  sport  in  mediaeval 
Tartary,  where  INIarco  Polo  describes  the  Great  Khan  going 
15 


2IO  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

out,  borne  by  two  elephants  in  his  litter  hung  with  cloth 
of  gold  and  covered  with  lion-skins,  to  see  the  sport  of 
his  ten  thousand  falconers  flying  their  hawks  at  the  pheasants 
and  cranes.  From  the  East  hawking  spread  over  Europe. 
It  was  familiar  to  our  early  English  ancestors,  and  if  one 
had  to  paint  a  symbolic  picture  of  the  middle  ages,  one 
could  hardly  choose  more  characteristic  figures  than  the 
knight  and  lady  riding  out  with  their  hooded  hawks  on 
their  fists.  Since  then  falconry  has  all  but  died  out  in 
Europe,  and  nowadays  the  traveller  may  best  see  it  in  the 
Asiatic  ilistrict  where  it  first  came  up,  Persia  or  the  neigh- 
bouring countries.  In  such  sports  the  quest  of  food  (now 
often  contemptuously  called  "pot-hunting")  becomes  sub- 
ordinate to  the  excitement  of  the  chase.  It  was  so  especially 
where  fleet  animals  like  the  deer  were  hunted  on  horseback, 
till  at  last  the  royal  stag-hunt  became  a  court  ceremony 
with  its  cavalcades  and  its  great  officers  of  state  in  splendid 
uniforms.  Such  pageantry  is,  indeed,  declining  in  modern 
Europe,  but  the  place  it  used  to  hold  in  English  court  life  is 
shown  by  noblemen  still  occupying  in  the  Royal  household 
the  places  of  Master  of  the  Buckhounds  and  Hereditary 
Grand  Falconer. 

The  modern  hunter  has  a  vastly  increased  power  of  killing 
game,  from  the  use  of  fire-arms  instead  of  the  bow  and  spear 
which  came  down  from  savage  times.  The  effect  of  bring- 
ing in  guns  is  seen  among  the  native  American  buffalo- 
hunters.  They  were  always  reckless  in  destruction  when 
they  once  came  within  reach  of  the  herds,  but  now  with 
the  help  of  the  white  man  and  the  use  of  his  rifles  there 
is  such  slaughter  that  travellers  have  found  the  ground  and 
air  for  miles  foul  with  the  carcases  of  buffalo  killed  merely 
for  the  hides  and  tongues.  In  the  civilized  world,  what 
with  killing  off  game,  and  what  with  the  encroachment  of 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  2ii 

agriculture  on  the  wild  lands,  both  the  supply  and  the  need  of 
game  for  man's  subsistence  have  much  lessened.  But  the 
hunter's  life  has  been  from  the  earliest  times  man's  school 
of  endurance  and  courage,  where  success  and  even  trial 
gives  pleasure  in  one  of  its  intensest  forms.  Thus  it  has 
come  to  be  kept  up  artificially  where  its  practical  use  has 
fallen  away.  In  civilized  countries  it  is  seen  at  its  best 
where  it  keeps  closest  to  barbaric  fatigue  and  danger,  like 
grouse-shooting  in  Scotland,  or  boar-hunting  in  Austria,  but 
at  its  meanest,  where  it  has  come  down  to  shooting  grain-fed 
pheasants  as  tame  as  barn-door  fowls. 

Next,  as  to  trapping  game.  This  was  seen  in  a  curiously 
simple  form  in  Australia,  where  a  native  would  lie  on  his 
back  on  a  rock  in  the  sunshine  with  a  bit  of  fish  in  his  hand, 
pretending  to  be  fast  asleep,  till  some  hawk  or  crow  pounced 
on  the  bait,  only  to  be  itself  pounced  on  by  the  hungry 
man,  who  broiled  and  ate  it  then  and  there,  A  plan  of 
taking  game  which  must  have  readily  suggested  itself  to 
rude  hunters  was  the  pitfall,  in  its  simplest  shape  a  mere 
hole  too  deep  for  a  heavy  beast  to  get  out  of  when  it  has 
fallen  in.  The  savage  trapper  will  dig  such  a  pit,  and  cover 
it  with  brushwood  or  sods,  as  in  Africa  the  bushmen  take 
the  huge  hippopotamus  and  elephant,  while  in  fur-countries 
the  hunters  arrange  their  pitfalls  in  various  ways,  the  most 
artificial  plan  being  to  cover  them  with  a  wooden  floor  which 
upsets  when  trodden  on.  The  word  trap,  meaning  originally 
step  (like  German  treppe),  may  have  come  from  its  usually 
being  some  contrivance  for  the  game  to  tread  on.  It  is  so 
not  only  with  the  pitfall,  but  with  other  common  kinds  of 
trap,  which,  when  the  animal  steps  on  the  catch,  drop 
down  on  it,  or  pull  a  noose  round  it,  or  let  fly  a  dart  at  it, 
all  which  are  plans  known  in  the  uncivilized  world.  The 
art  of  catching  birds  and  beasts  with  a  noose,  held  in  the 


212  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

hand  or  fastened  to  the  end  of  a  stick,  is  universah  Perhaps 
the  most  skilful  noosing  is  that  done  on  horseback  by  the 
herdsmen  of  Mexico,  though  it  should  be  noticed  that  their 
lazo  is  not  a  native  American  invention ;  it  was  brought  over 
by  the  Spaniards  with  its  name,  which  is  simply  Latin 
laqueus^  a  rope.  To  use  the  noose  for  trapping  purposes,  it 
is  only  necessary  to  set  it  in  the  track  where  game  pass, 
for  them  to  run  their  heads  into,  as  the  North  American 
Indians  do.  But  the  noose  may  also  be  attached  to  a  bough 
bent  back  so  as  to  spring  up  when  an  animal  touches  it,  and 
catch  him.  Or  a  spear  may  be  arranged  as  the  savages  of 
the  Malay  Peninsula  do  it,  with  an  elastic  bamboo  so  bent 
back  that  when  released  by  the  animal  it  will  spear  him. 
The  suggestion  has  been  already  mentioned  (p.  195)  that 
such  a  spring-trap  first  led  to  the  invention  of  the  bovv 
and  arrow.  Actual  bows  and  arrows  are  set  as  traps  in 
such  countries  as  Siberia,  and  the  spring-gun  is  a  modern 
improvement  on  these. 

Lastly,  the  net  is  one  of  tlie  things  known  to  almost  all 
men  so  far  as  history  can  tell.  The  native  Australians  net 
game  hke  ancient  Assyrians  or  English  poachers,  and  are 
not  less  skilled  in  netting  wild  fowl.  To  see  this  art  at  its 
height  we  may  look  at  the  pictures  of  fowling  scenes  on 
the  monuments  of  ancient  Egypt,  which  show  the  great 
clap-nets  taking  geese  by  scores ;  even  the  souls  of  the 
dead  are  depicted  rejoicing  in  this  favourite  sport  in  the 
world  beyond  the  tomb. 

Among  the  various  arts  of  the  fisherman,  one  common 
among  rude  tribes  was  easily  hit  upon.  Every  day  at  the 
turn  of  the  tide  at  river-mouths  and  on  low  shores,  and 
inland  near  streams  after  a  flood,  fish  are  left  behind  in  the 
shallow  pools.  Led  by  this  experience,  the  savage  has  wit 
enough  to  assist  nature,  as  where  the  Fuegians  put  up  stake 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  213 

fences  on  the  coast  at  low-water  mark,  while  in  South  Africa 
near  the  rivers  large  flats  are  walled  in  with  loose  stones 
ready  for  the  floods.  Thus  our  fish-weirs  and  fish-dams  are 
no  novelties  in  civilization.  Nor  is  the  device  of  drugging 
or  narcotizing  fish  a  civilized  invention,  but  to  be  seen  in 
perfection  among  the  tropical  forest-tribes  of  South  America, 
who  use  for  the  purpose  a  score  or  so  of  different  plants. 
There  is  nothing  surprising,  however,  in  its  being  known  to 
men  so  rude,  for  it  must  often  occur  by  accident,  from  the 
branches  or  fruit  of  the  right  kind  of  euphorbia  or  paullinia 
falling  into  some  forest  pool,  an  experiment  which  the 
observant  native  would  not  be  slow  to  try  again.  Next,  a 
mode  of  fishing  usual  among  savages,  is  spearing,  the  spear 
lor  this  being  barbed,  and  often  made  more  effective  by  the 
liead  spreading  into  several  barbed  prongs.  An  account  of 
a  native  Australian  fishing  describe-s  him  lying  athwart  his 
bark  canoe,  with  his  spear-point  dipping  into  the  water  ready 
to  go  down  without  splashing,  and  what  is  more  remarkable, 
the  fisherman  keeping  his  own  eyes  under  water,  so  that  not 
only  the  ripple  does  not  disturb  his  vijw,  but  his  aim  is  not 
interfered  with  by  the  refraction  of  light  which  makes  it  so 
difficult  for  a  man  out  of  the  water  to  hit  an  object  below 
the  surface.  The  wilder  races  also  know  well  how  after  dark 
fish  come  to  a  light,  so  that  salmon-spearing  by  torchlight, 
now  that  it  is  no  longer  so  frequent  in  Scotland  or  Norway, 
may  be  seen  in  all  its  picturesqueness  among  the  Indians  of 
Vancouver's  Island.  Shooting  fish  with  the  bow  and  arrow, 
which  many  low  tribes  do  with  wonderful  dexterity,  may  be 
counted  as  a  variety  of  fish-spearing.  The  fish-hook  is  a 
contrivance  not  known  to  all  savage  tribes,  but  some  have 
it,  as  the  Australians  who  cut  their  hooks  out  of  shell,  and 
are  even  known  to  fish  with  a  hawk's  claw  attached 
to  a  line.     The  ancient  Egyptian  would  sit  like  a  modern 


214  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

European  angler  by  a  canal  or  pond,  fishing  with  rod  and 
line  ;  his  hook  was  of  bronze.  Only  fly-fishing  seems  not  to 
have  been  known  in  ancient  times.  On  the  whole  it  is 
remarkable  how  little  modern  fishermen  have  moved  firom 
the  methods  of  the  rudest  and  oldest  men.  The  savage  fish- 
spear,  with  its  three  or  four  barbed  prongs,  is  curiously  like 
that  our  sailors  still  use,  and  call  a  fish-gig.  Only  we  make 
the  head  of  iron,  not  of  wood  and  fish-teeth.  So  it  is  with 
the  harpoon  used  by  American  whalers,  with  its  loosely 
fitting  point  which  comes  off  when  the  fish  is  struck,  only 
remaining  attached  by  a  long  cord  to  the  floating  shaft ;  this 
is  copied,  but  with  a  steel  point,  from  the  bone-headed 
harpoon  of  the  Aleutian  Islanders.  Our  fishermen  carry  on 
their  business  on  a  large  scale,  with  their  steam-trawlers  and 
seines  which  sweep  a  whole  bay,  but  their  net-fishing  is 
much  of  the  same  kinds  as  may  be  found  among  the 
peoples  from  whom  we  have  here  taken  our  early  examples 
of  spearing  and  angling. 

Thus  man,  even  while  he  feeds  himself  as  the  lower 
animals  do,  by  gathering  wild  fruit  and  catching  game  and 
fish,  is  led  by  his  higher  intelligence  to  more  artificial  means 
of  getting  these.  Rising  to  the  next  stage,  he  begins  to  grow 
supplies  of  food  for  himself.  Agriculture  is  not  to  be 
looked  on  as  a  difiicult  or  out-of-the-way  invention,  for  the 
rudest  savage,  skilled  as  he  is  in  the  habits  of  the  food-]:)lants 
he  gathers,  must  know  well  enough  that  if  seeds  or  roots 
are  put  in  a  proper  place  in  the  ground  they  will  grow. 
Thus  it  is  hardly  through  ignorance,  but  rather  from  roving 
life,  bad  climate,  or  sheer  idleness,  that  so  many  tribes 
gather  what  nature  gives,  but  plant  nothing.  Even  very 
rude  people,  when  they  live  on  one  spot  all  the  year  round, 
and  the  climate  and  soil  are  favourable,  mostly  plant  a  little, 
like  the  Indians  of  Brazil,  who  clear  a  patch  of  forest  round 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  215 

their  huts  to  grow  a  supply  of  maize,  cassava,  bananas,  and 
cotton.  When  we  look  at  the  food-plants  of  the  world,  it 
appears  that  some  few  are  grown  much  as  in  their  wild  state, 
like  the  coco-nut  and  bread-fruit,  but  most  are  altered  by 
cultivation.  Sometimes  it  is  possible  to  find  the  wild  plant 
and  show  how  man  has  improved  it,  as  where  the  wild 
potato  is  found  growing  on  the  cliffs  of  Chile.  But  the 
origin  of  many  cultivated  plants  is  lost  to  tradition  and  has 
become  a  subject  for  tale-tellers.  This  is  the  case  with 
those  edible  grasses  which  have  been  raised  by  cultivation 
into  the  cereals,  such  as  wheat,  barley,  rye,  and  by  their 
regular  and  plentiful  supply  have  become  the  mainstay  of 
human  life  and  the  great  moving  power  of  civilization.  It 
is  clear  that  the  development  of  these  grain-plants  from 
their  wild  state  was  before  the  earliest  ages  of  history, 
which  throws  back  the  beginnings  of  agriculture  to 
times  older  still.  How  ancient  was  the  first  tilling  of  the 
soil,  is  shown  by  ancient  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  with  their 
governments  and  armies,  temples  and  palaces,  for  it  could 
have  been  only  through  carrying  on  agriculture  for  a 
long  series  of  ages  that  such  populations  could  have 
grown  up  so  closely  packed  to.  ether  as  to  form  a  civi- 
lized nation.  Plants,  when  once  brought  into  cultivation, 
make  their  way  from  people  to  people  across  the  globe. 
Thus  the  European  conquerors  of  America  carried  back  the 
maize  or  Indian  corn  which  had  been  cultivated  from  un- 
known antiquity  over  the  New  World,  and  which  now 
furnishes  the  Italian  peasant  with  his  daily  meal  of  polenta 
or  porridge ;  it  is  grown  even  in  Japan,  and  down  to  the 
south  of  Africa,  where  it  is  the  "mealies"  of  the  colonist. 
An  Enghsh  vegetable  garden  is  a  curious  study  for  the 
botanist  who  assigns  to  each  plant  its  proper  home,  and  to 
the  philologist  who  traces  its  name.     Sometimes  this  tells 


2l6 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


its  story  fairly,  as  where  damson  and  peach  describe  these 
fruits  as  brought  from  Damascus  and  Persia.  But  the 
potato,  brought  over  in  Queen  Ehzabeth's  time,  seems  to 
have  borrowed  the  name  of  another 
plant  botanically  different,  the  batata, 
or  sweet-potato.  The  luscious  tro- 
pical ananas  has  lost  its  native  Malay 
name  except  among  botanists,  and  has 
taken  the  name  of  the  common  fir- 
cone or  pinc-apple,  which  in  shape  it 
so  closely  resembles. 

By  noticing  how  rude  tribes  till  the 
soil,  much  is  to  be  learnt  as  to  the 
invention  of  agricultural  implements. 
Wandering  savages  like  the  Australians 
carry  a  pointed  stick  to  dig  up  eatable 
roots  with,  as  in  Fig.  64  a.  Considering 
how  nearly  planting  a  root  is  the  same 
work  as  digging  one  up,  it  is  likely  that 
a  tribe  beginning  to  till  the  soil  would 
use  their  root-dig]ing  sticks  for  the 
new  purpose  ;  indeed,  a  pointed  stake 
has  been  found  as  the  rude  husband- 
man's implement  both  in  the  Old  and 
New  World.  It  is  an  improvement 
on  this  to  dig  with  a  flat-bladed  tool 
like  a  spear,  sword,  or  paddle,  and  thus 

Fig.     64. — a.    Ausiralian  ,  .....  ,  , 

digging-Slick ;  ^,  Swedish  wc  havc  the  civilized  spadc.  A  more 
important  tool,  the  hoe,  is  derived  from 
the  pick  or  hatchet.  The  wooden  picks  of  the  New  Cale- 
donians serve  both  as  weapons  and  for  planting  yams,  while 
the  African's  hatchet — an  iron  blade  stuck  in  a  club — only 
has  to  have  the  blade  turned  across  to  become  his  hoe.    It 


IX.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


217 


is  curious  to  find  in  "Europe  the  rudest  imaginable  hoe,  less 
artificial  than  the  elk's  shoulder-blade  fastened  to  a  sticky, 
with  which  the  North  American  squaws  hoed  their  Indian 
corn.  This  is  the  Swedish  "  hack,"  Fig.  64/;',  a  mere  stout 
stake  of  spruce-fir  with  a  bough  sdcking  out  at  the  lower 
end  cut  short  and  pointed.  With  this  primitive  implement 
in  old  times  fields  were  tilled  in  Sweden,  and  it  was  to  be  seen 
in  forest  farmhouses  within  a  generation  or  two.  Swedish 
tradition  records  the  steps  by  which  agriculture  improved. 
The  wooden  hack  was  made  heavier  and  dragged  by  men 
through  the  ground,  thus  ploughing  a  furrow  in  the  simplest 
way ;  then  the  implement  was  made  in  two  pieces,  with  a 


Fig.  65. — Ancient  Egyptian  hoe  and  plough. 


handle  for  the  ploughman  and  a  pole  for  the  men  to  drag 
by,  the  share  was  shod  with  an  iron  point,  and  at  last  a  pair 
of  cows  or  mares  were  yoked  on  instead  of  the  men.  This 
seems  nearly  the  way  in  which,  thousands  of  years  earlier, 
the  hoe  first  passed  into  the  plough.  Fig.  65  is  from  a 
picture  of  agriculture  in  ancient  Egypt.  Here  the  labourer 
is  seen  following  the  plough  to  break  up  the  clods  with  his 
peculiar  hoe,  with  its  long,  curved,  wooden  blade  roped  to 
the  handle.  Now  looking  at  the  plough  itself,  it  is  seen  to 
be  such  a  hoe,  rope  and  all,  only  heavier  and  provided  with 
a  pair  of  handles  for  the  ploughman  to  guide  and  keep  it 
down,  while  a  yoke  of  oxen  drag  it  through  the  ground.  The 


2i8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

valley  of  the  Nile  was  one  of  the  districts  where  high  agri- 
culture earliest  arose,  and  in  the  picture  here  copied  we  may 
almost  fancy  ourselves  seeing  at  its  birth  tlie  great  invention 
of  the  plough.  To  arm  it  with  a  heavy  metal  ploughshare, 
to  shape  this  so  that  it  shall  turn  the  sod  over  in  a  continu- 
ous ridge,  to  fix  a  coulter  or  "  knife  "  in  front  to  give  the 
first  cut,  and  to  mount  the  whole  on  wheels ;  all  these  were 
improvements  known  in  Rome  in  the  classical  period.  In 
modern  times  we  have  the  self-acting  plough  no  longer 
needing  the  ploughman  to  follow  at  the  plough-tail,  and  the 
steam-plough  has  a  more  powerful  draught  than  oxen  or 
horses.  Yet  those  who  have  looked  at  the  earlier  stages 
can  still  discern  in  the  most  perfect  modern  plough  the 
original  hoe  dragged  through  the  ground. 

There  survives  even  now  in  the  world  a  barbaric  mode 
of  bringing  land  under  cultivation,  which  seems  to  show  us 
man  much  as  he  was  when  he  began  to  subdue  the  primseval 
forest,  where  till  then  he  had  only  wandered,  gathering  wild 
roots  and  nuts  and  berries.  This  primitive  agriculture  was 
noticed  by  Columbus,  when  landing  in  the  West  Indies  he 
found  the  natives  clearing  patches  of  soil  by  cutting  the 
brushwood  and  burning  it  on  the  spot.  This  simple  plan, 
where  the  wood  is  not  only  got  out  of  the  way,  but  the 
ashes  serve  for  dressing,  may  still  be  seen  among  the  hill- 
tribes  of  India,  who  till  these  plots  of  land  for  a  couple 
of  years  and  then  move  on  to  a  new  spot.  In  Sweden  this 
brand-tillage,  as  it  may  be  called,  is  not  only  remembered 
as  the  old  agriculture  of  the  land,  but  in  outlying  dis- 
tricts it  has  lasted  on  into  modern  days,  giving  us  an  idea 
what  the  rough  agriculture  of  the  early  tribes  may  have 
been  like  when  they  migrated  into  Europe.  It  is  not  to  be 
supposed,  on  looking  at  an  English  farm  of  the  present  day, 
that  its  improvements  were  made  all  at  once.     The  modern 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  C19 

farming  system  has  a  long  and  changing  history  behind  it. 
One  interesting  point  in  its  growth  is  that  in  long-past  ages 
much  of  Europe  was  brought  under  cultivation  by  village- 
communities.  A  clan  of  settlers  would  possess  themselves 
of  a  wide  tract  of  land,  and  near  their  huts  they  would 
lay  out  great  common  fields,  which  at  first  they  perhaps 
tilled  and  reaped  in  common  as  one  family.  It  became 
usual  to  parcel  out  this  tillage  land  every  few  years  into 
family  lots,  but  the  whole  village-field  was  still  cultivated 
by  the  whole  community,  working  together  in  the  time 
and  way  settled  by  the  village  elders.  This  early  com- 
munistic system  of  husbandry  may  still  be  seen  not  much 
changed  in  the  villages  of  such  countries  as  Russia.  Even 
in  England  its  traces  have  out-lasted  the  feudal  system, 
and  remain  in  the  present  days  of  landlord  and  tenant.  In 
several  English  counties  there  may  still  be  noticed  the 
boundaries  of  the  great  common-fields,  divided  lengthwise 
into  three  strips,  which  again  were  divided  crosswise  into 
lots,  held  by  the  villagers ;  the  three  divisions  were  man- 
.  aged  on  the  old  three-field  system,  one  lying  fallow  while 
the  other  two  bore  two  kinds  of  crops. 

Next,  as  to  the  history  of  domesticating  animals  for  food. 
The  tammg  of  sociable  creatures  like  parrots  and  monkeys 
is  done  by  low  forest  tribes,  who  delight  in  such  pets ;  and 
very  rude  tribes  keep  dogs  for  guard  and  hunting.  But  it 
marks  a  more  artificial  way  of  life  when  men  come  to  keep 
and  breed  animals  for  food.  Tlie  move  upwards  from  the 
life  of  the  hunter  to  that  of  the  herdsman  is  well  seen 
in  the  far  north,  the  home  of  the  reindeer.  Among  the 
Esquimaux  the  reindeer  Avas  only  hunted.  But  Siberian 
tribes  not  only  hunt  them  wild,  but  tame  them.  Thus  the 
Tunguz  live  by  these  herds,  which  provide  them  not  only 
with  milk  and  meat,  but  with  skins  for  clothing  and  tents, 


220  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

sinews  for  cord,  bone  and  horn  for  implements,  while  as 
they  move  from  place  to  place  the  deer  even  serve  as  beasts 
of  draught  and  burden.  Here  is  seen  a  specimen  of  pastoral 
life  of  a  simple  rude  kind,  and  it  is  needless  to  go  on  de- 
scribing at  length  the  well-known  life  of  higher  nomade 
tribes,  who  shift  their  tents  from  place  to  place  on  the 
steppes  of  Central  Asia  or  the  deserts  of  Arabia,  seeking 
pasture  for  their  oxen  and  sheep,  their  camels  and  horses. 
There  is  a  strong  distinction  between  the  life  of  the  wander- 
ing hunter  and  the  wandering  herdsman.  Both  move  from 
place  to  place,  but  their  circumstances  are  widely  different. 
The  hunter  leads  a  life  of  few  appliances  or  comforts,  and 
exposed  at  times  to  starvation ;  his  place  in  civilization  is 
below  that  of  the  settled  tiller  of  the  soil.  But  to  the 
pastoral  nomade,  the  hunting  which  is  the  subsistence  of  the 
ruder  wanderer,  has  come  to  be  only  an  extra  means  of  life. 
His  flocks  and  herds  provide  him  for  the  morrow,  he  has 
valuable  cattle  to  exchange  with  the  dwellers  in  towns  for 
their  weapons  and  stuffs,  there  are  smiths  in  his  caravan, 
and  the  wool  is  spun  and  wosen  by  the  women.  What  best 
marks  the  place  in  civilization  which  the  higher  pastoral  life 
attains  to,  is  that  the  patriarchal  herdsman  may  belong  to 
one  of  the  great  religions  of  the  world ;  thus  the  KalmukS 
of  the  steppes  are  Buddhists,  the  Arabs  are  Moslems.  A  yet 
higher  stage  of  prosperity  and  comfort  is  reached  where  the 
agricultural  and  pastoral  life  combine,  as  they  already  did 
among  our  forefathers  in  the  village  communities  of  old 
Europe  just  described.  Here,  while  the  fields  were  culti- 
vated near  the  village,  the  cattle  pastured  in  summer  on 
the  hills  and  in  the  woodlands  belonging  to  the  com- 
munity, where  also  the  hunter  went  for  game,  while  nearer 
home  there  were  common  meadows  for  pasture  and  to 
provide  the  hay  for  the  winter  weather,  when  the  cattle  were 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  22t 

brought  under  shelter  in  the  stalls.  In  countries  so  thickly 
populated  as  ours  is  now,  the  last  traces  of  the  ancient 
nomade  life  disappear  when  the  herds  are  no  longer  driven 
off  to  the  hills  in  summer. 

After  the  quest  of  food,  man's  next  great  need  is  to  defend 
himself.  The  savage  has  to  drive  off  the  wild  beasts  which 
attack  him,  and  in  turn  he  hunts  and  destroys  them.  But 
his  most  dangerous  foes  are  those  of  his  own  species,  and 
thus  m  the  lowest  known  levels  of  civilization  war  has  al- 
ready begun,  and  is  carried  on  against  man  Avith  the  same 
club,  spear,  and  bow  used  against  wild  beasts.  General 
Pitt-Rivers  has  shown  how  closely  man  follows  in  war  the 
devices  he  learnt  from  the  lower  animals  ;  how  his  weapons 
imitate  their  horns,  claws,  teeth,  and  stings,  even  to  their 
venom  ;  how  man  protects  himself  with  armour  imitated 
from  animals'  hides  and  scales  ;  and  how  his  warlike  strata- 
gems are  copied  from  those  of  the  birds  and  beasts,  such 
as  setting  ambushes  and  sentinels,  attacking  in  bodies  under 
a  leader,  and  rushing  on  with  war-cries  to  the  fight. 

We  have  already  in  the  last  chapter  examined  the  principal 
offensive  weapons.  The  daubing  on  of  venom  to  make 
them  more  deadly  is  found  among  low  tribes  far  over  the 
world.  Thus  the  Bushman  mixes  serpent's  poison  with  the 
euphorbia  juice,  and  the  South  American  native  poison- 
maker,  prepared  by  a  long  fast  for  the  mysterious  act,  con- 
cocts the  paralysing  unrn  or  curare  in  the  secret  depths 
of  the  forest,  where  no  woman's  eye  may  fall  on  the  fearful 
process.  Poisoned  arrows  were  known  to  the  ancient  world, 
as  witness  the  lines  which  tell  'of  Odysseus  going  to  Ephyra 
for  the  man-slaying  drug  to  smear  his  bronze-tipped  arrows ; 
but  Ilos  would  not  give  it,  for  he  feared  the  ever-living  gods. 
Thus  it  seems  that  in  early  ages  the  moral  sense  of  the 
higher  nations  had  already  condemned  the  poisoned  weapons 


C22  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

of  the  savage,  with  something  of  the  horror  Europeans  now 
feel  in  examining  the  Itahan  bravo's  daggers  of  the  middle 
ages,  with  their  poison-grooves  imitated  from  the  serpent's 
tooth. 

How  the  warrior's  armour  comes  from  the  natural  armour 
of  animals  is  plainly  to  be  seen.  The  beast's  own  hide 
may  be  used,  as  where  one  sees  in  museums  the  armour  of 
bear-skins  from  Borneo,  or  breast-plates  of  crocodile's  skin 
from  Egypt.  The  name  of  the  cuirass  shows  that  it  was  at 
first  of  leather,  like  the  buff  jerkin.  The  Bugis  of  Sumatra 
would  make  a  breastplate  by  sewing  upon  bark  the  cast- 
ofif  scales  of  the  ant-eater,  overlapping  as  the  animal  wore 
them ;  and  so  the  natural  armour  of  animals  was  imitated 
by  the  Sarmatians,  with  their  slices  of  horses's  hoofs 
sewed  together  in  overlapping  scales  like  a  fir-cone.  Such 
devices,  when  metal  came  in,  would  lead  to  the  scale 
armour  of  the  Greeks,  imitated  from  fish-scales  and  serpent- 
scales,  while  their  chain-mail  is  a  sort  of  netted  garment 
made  in  metal.  The  armour  of  the  middle  ages  con- 
tinued the  ancient  kinds,  now  protecting  the  whole  body 
with  a  suit  from  head  to  foot  {cap-a-p'ce)  of  iron  scales,  or 
mail  (that  is,  meshes)  or  of  jointed  plates  of  iron  copied 
from  the  crab  and  lobster,  such  as  the  later  suits  of  armour 
which  decorate  our  manorial  halls.  With  the  introduction 
of  gunpowder,  armour  began  to  be  cast  aside,  and  except 
the  helmet,  what  remains  of  it  in  military  equipment  is 
more  for  show  than  use.  The  shield  also,  once  so  im- 
portant a  part  of  the  soldier's  panoply,  has  been  discarded 
since  the  days  of  musketry.  Our  modern  notion  of  a  shield 
is  that  of  a  large  screen  behind  which  the  warrior  can  shelter 
himself,  but  this  does  not  appear  to  ha\e  been  the  original 
intention.  The  primitive  shield  was  probably  the  parrying- 
shield,  used  like  the  narrow  Australian  parrying-stick,  which 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  1223 

is  only  four  inches  across  in  the  middle  where  it  is  grasped, 
but  with  which  the  natives  ward  off  darts  with  wonderful 
dexterity.  The  small  round  Highland  target,  one  of  the 
varieties  of  shield  which  remained  latest  in  civilized  Europe, 
is  made  to  be  thus  dexterously  handled  as  a  weapon  of 
defence,  to  ward  off  javelins,  or  parry  the  thrust  of  spear 
or  sword.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  such  parrying-shields  belong 
to  the  early  kind  of  warfare  where  the  battle  was  a  skirmish, 
and  every  warrior  took  care  of  himself  But  when  fighting 
in  close  ranks  began,  then  the  great  screen-shields  would 
come  in,  serving  as  a  wall  behind  which  the  old  Egyptian 
soldiers  could  ensconce  themselves,  or  the  Greek  or  Roman 
storming-party  creep  up  to  the  foot  of  the  wall  in  spite  of 
stones  and  darts  hurled  down  on  them. 

The  savage  or  barbarian  is  apt  to  fall  on  his  enemy  un- 
awares, seeking  to  kill  him  like  a  wild  beast,  especially 
where  there  is  bitter  personal  hatred  or  blood-vengeance. 
But  even  among  low  tribes  we  find  a  strong  distinction  drawn 
between  such  manslaughter  and  regular  war,  ■'.vhich  is  waged 
not  so  much  for  mutual  destruction  as  for  a  victory  to  settle 
a  quarrel  between  two  parties.  For  instance,  the  natives  of 
Australia  have  come  far  beyond  mere  murder  when  one 
tribe  sends  another  a  bunch  of  emu-feathers  tied  to  the  end 
of  a  spear,  as  a  challenge  to  fight  next  day.  Then  the  two 
sides  meet  in  battle  array,  their  naked  bodies  terrific  with 
painted  patterns,  brandishing  their  spears  and  clubs,  and 
clamouring  with  taunts  and  yells.  Each  warrior  is  paired 
with  an  opponent,  so  that  the  fight  is  really  a  set  of  duels,, 
where  spear  after  spear  is  hurled  and  dodged  or  parried 
with  wonderful  dexterity,  till  at  last  perhaps  a  man  is  killed, 
which  generally  brings  the  fray  to  an  end.  Among  the  rude 
Botocudos  of  Brazil,  a  quarrel  arising  from  one  tribe  hunting 
hogs   on  another's  ground  might  be  settled  by  a  solemn 


224  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

ciidgelling-match,  where  pairs  of  warriors  belaboured  one 
another  with  heavy  stakes,  while  the  women  fouglit  by 
scratching  faces  and  tearing  hair,  till  one  side  gave  in.  But 
if  in  such  an  encounter  the  beaten  party  take  to  their  bows 
and  arrows,  the  scene  may  change  into  a  real  battle.  When 
it  comes  to  regular  war,  the  Botocudos  will  draw  up  their 
men  fronting  the  enemy,  pouring  in  arrows,  and  then  rush- 
ing together  with  war-whoops  to  fight  it  out  tooth  and  nail, 
killing  man,  woman,  and  child.  They  make  expeditions  to 
plunder  the  villages  of  their  settled  neighbours,  and  when 
enemies  are  near  in  the  forest  they  will  stick  splinters  in  the 
ground  as  caltrops  to  lame  them,  and  shoot  from  ambush 
behind  fallen  trunks  or  shelters  of  boughs.  The  slain  in 
battle  they  will  carry  off  to  cook  and  devour  at  the  feast, 
where  with  wild  drunken  dancing  their  warlike  zeal  is  in- 
flamed to  frenzied  rage.  Thus  to  excite  courage  is  the 
purpose  of  the  frantic  war-songs  and  war-dances,  which  are 
common  to  mankind,  among  savages  and  even  far  more 
cultureJ  nations.  Low  tribes  also  keep  up  the  fierce  hatred 
and  pride  of  battle  by  trophies  of  the  enemy — his  head  dried 
and  hung  as  an  ornament  of  the  hut,  or  his  skull  fashioned 
into  a  drinking-cup.  The  wars  of  the  North  American 
Indians  have  picturesque  incidents  often  described  in  our 
books,  the  braves  smoking  in  solemn  council  of  war,  the 
declaration  of  war  by  the  bundle  of  arrows  wrapped  in  a 
rattlesnake's  skin,  or  the  blood-red  war-hatchet  struck  into 
the  war-post,  the  recruiting-feast  where  the  dog  was  eaten  as 
emblem  of  fidelity,  the  war-party  creeping  through  the  woods 
in  single  line  (which  we  thence  call  "  Indian  file '")  the  stealthy 
attack  on  the  enemy's  camp  or  village,  tlie  wild  scalp-dance 
of  the  returning  victors,  the  torturing  of  the  captives  at  the 
stake,  where  the  very  children  were  set  to  shoot  arrows  at 
the  helpless  foe,  who  bore  his  torments  without  a  groan, 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  225 

boasting  of  his  own  fierce  deeds  and  taunting  his  conquerors 
in  his  death-agony.  Indian  war  was  "  to  creep  Uke  a  fox, 
attack  like  a  panther,  and  fly  hke  a  bird."  Yet  at  times  the 
warriors  of  two  tribes  would  meet  in  fair  battle,  standing 
to  watch  duels  between  pairs  of  champions,  or  all  rushing 
together  in  a  general  mele'e. 

In  the  warfare  of  rude  races,  it  is  to  be  noticed  how 
fighting  for  quarrel  or  vengeance  -begins  to  pass  into  fighting 
for  gain.  Among  some  tribes  the  captives,  instead  of  being 
slain,  are  brought  back  for  slaves,  and  especially  set  to  till 
the  ground.  By  this  agriculture  is  much  increased,  and  also 
a  new  division  of  society  takes  place,  to  be  seen  still  arising 
among  such  warlike  tribes  as  the  Caribs,  where  the  captives 
with  their  children  come  to  form  a  hereditary  low^er  class. 
Thus  we  see  how  in  old  times  the  original  equality  of  men 
broke  up,  a  nation  dividing  into  an  aristocracy  of  warlike 
freemen,  and  an  inferior  labouring  caste.  Also  forays  are 
made  for  the  warriors  to  bring  home  wives,  who  are  the 
slaves  and  property  of  their  captors.  With  this  wife-capture 
is  connected  the  law  widely  prevailing  among  the  ruder 
peoples  of  the  world,  and  lasting  on  even  among  the  more 
civilized,  that  a  man  may  not  take  a  wife  from  his  own  clan 
or  tribe,  but  from  some  other.  As  property  increases,  there 
appears  with  it  warfare  carried  on  as  a  business,  by  tribes 
living  more  or  less  by  plunder,  glorying  in  their  murderous 
profession,  and  despising  the  mean-spirited  farming  villagers 
whose  labour  provides  them  with  corn  and  cattle.  A  per- 
fect example  of  such  a  robber-tribe  were  the  Mbayas  of 
South  America,  whose  simple  religion  it  was  that  their  deity, 
the  Great  Eagle,  had  bidden  them  live  by  making  war  on 
all  other  tribes,  slaying  the  men,  taking  the  women  for  wives, 
and  carrying  off  the  goods. 

War  among  civilized  nations  differs  from  that  of  savage 

16 


226  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

tribes  in  being  carried  on  with  better  weapons  and  appliances, 
and  by  warricrs  being  trained  to  fight  in  regular  order.  The 
superiority  of  a  regular  army  to  a  straggling  savage  war-party 
may  be  well  seen  by  looking  at  the  pictures  in  Wilkinson's 
Ancient  Egyptians,  of  troops  marching  in  rank  and  step  to 
sound  of  trumpet,  especially  noticing  the  solid  phalanx  of 
heavy  infantry  with  spear  and  shield.  The  strength  of 
such  Egyptian  solid  squares  of  10,000  men  is  described  in 
the  Cyroptedia  (probably  with  truth  as  to  military  tactics  if 
not  to  actual  history),  how  they  could  not  be  broken  even 
by  the  victorious  Persians,  but  amid  the  rout  of  man  and 
horse  the  survivors  still  held  out,  sitting  under  their  shields, 
till  Cyrus  granted  them  honourable  surrender.  An  Egyptian 
army  had  its  various  corps  divided  into  companies, 
and  commanded  by  officers  of  regular  grades.  In  batde 
the  heavy  immovable  phalanx  held  the  centre,  the  archers 
and  light  infantry  in  the  wings  acted  in  line  or  open  order, 
there  were  bodies  of  slingers,  and  the  noble  warriors  drove 
their  chariots  into  the  thick  of  the  opposing  host.  This 
military  efficiency  was  attained  by  having  a  standing  army 
formed  by  a  regular  military  class,  trained  from  youth  in  the 
art  of  war,  and  maintained  by  eight  acres  of  land  assigned 
to  every  soldier.  Erom  an  early  time  also  we  find  the 
Egyptians  employing  foreign  mercenary  troops,  whose 
peculiar  costumes  and  faces  are  conspicuous  in  the  battle- 
pictures.  Thus  also  the  Assyrian  war-scenes  show  that  their 
military  system  was  on  a  level  with  that  of  Egypt.  The  rise 
of  the  science  of  war  to  a  higher  stage  belongs  to  Greece, 
and  the  whole  history  of  its  growth  is  told  in  Greek  litera- 
ture. Beginning  with  the  Iliad,  the  descriptions  there  show 
war  and  armies  in  a  state  more  barbaric  than  in  Egypt,  with 
little  disciphne  and  less  generalship,  and  encounters  of  Greek 
and  Trojan  champions  with  the  armies  looking  on  as  savages 


IX.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  227 

would  do.  But  when  we  come  to  later  ages  of  Greek 
history,  it  is  seen  that  they  had  by  that  time  not  only  learnt 
what  the  older  civilization  had  to  teach,  but  had  brought 
their  own  genius  to  develop  it  further.  Their  corps  of  all 
arras,  archers,  charioteers,  cavalry,  and  the  phalanx  of  spear- 
men, were  disciplined  and  ranged  in  order  of  battle  much 
after  the  ancient  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  manner.  But  where- 
as in  old  times  a  battle  had  been  a  trial  of  mere  strength 
between  two  armies  drawn  up  facing  one  another,  the 
military  historian  Xenophon  describes  the  change  made  in 
the  art  of  war  by  the  Theban  leader,  Epaminondas,  when  at 
Leuktra,  with  forces  fewer  than  the  Spartans,  he  charged 
with  his  men  in  column  fifty  deep  against  their  twelve  deep 
right  wing,  and  by  breaking  them  threw  the  whole  line  into 
disorder,  and  won  the  battle.  At  Mantineia,  carrying  out 
this  plan  yet  more  skilfully,  he  arranged  his  troops  in  a 
wedge-shaped  body  with  the  weaker  divisions  slanting  off 
behind  so  as  to  come  up  when  the  enemy's  front  was 
already  broken.  In  such  ways  was  developed  the  science 
of  military  tactics,  which  made  skilful  manoeuvring  as  im- 
portant as  actual  fighting.  The  Romans,  a  nation  drilled 
to  battle  and  conquest,  came  at  last  to  rule  the  world  by 
the  mere  force  of  military  discipline.  In  the  middle  ages 
the  introduction  of  gunpowder  increased  the  killing-power 
of  troops  whose  artillery  from  bows  and  arrows  became 
muskets  and  heavy  cannon.  The  reader's  attention  has 
been  already  drawn  to  the  military  scenes  of  Egypt  and 
Assyria.  If  now,  fresh  from  watching  the  manoeuvres  of  a 
modern  army  in  sham  fight,  he  will  look  at  these  pictures 
to  see  war  as  it  was  three  or  four  thousand  years  ago,  he 
will  observe  how  substantially  the  new  system  is  founded 
on  the  old,  with  developments  due  to  two  new  ideas, 
namely,  tactics  and  the  use  of  fire-arms. 


228  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap.   ix. 

Somewhat  the  same  lesson  may  be  learnt  by  comparing 
the  older  and  ruder  kinds  of  fortification  and  siege  with 
those  of  modern  times.  Tribes  at  the  level  of  the  Kam- 
chatkans  and  the  North  American  Indians  knew  how  to 
fortify  their  villages  with  embankments  and  palisades.  In 
ancient  Egypt  and  Assyria  and  neighbouring  countries, 
strong  and  high  fortress-walls  and  towers  were  defended  by 
archers  and  slingers,  and  attacked  by  storming- parties  with 
scaling-ladders.  Old  sieges  were  unscientific,  as  is  so 
curiously  seen  in  the  Homeric  poems,  where  the  Greeks 
encamp  over  against  Troy,  but  seem  to  have  no  notion 
of  regularly  investing  it,  much  less  of  attack  by  sap  and 
trench.  The  Greeks  and  Romans  came  on  to  use  higher 
art  in  fortification  and  siege,  and  there  appear  among  them 
machines  of  war  such  as  the  ancient  battering-ram,  heavy 
and  skilfully  engineered,  while  contrivances  of  the  nature 
of  huge  bows  like  the  catapult  led  up  to  the  cannon  of 
later  ages  which  superseded  them. 

Lastly,  looking  at  the  army  system  as  it  is  in  our  modern 
world,  one  favourable  change  is  to  be  noticed.  The  employ- 
ment of  foreign  mercenary  troops,  which  almost  through 
the  whole  stretch  of  historical  record  has  been  a  national 
evil  alike  in  war  and  peace,  is  at  last  dying  out.  It  is  not 
so  with  the  system  of  standing  armies  which  drain  the  life 
and  wealth  of  the  world  on  a  scale  more  enormous  even  than 
in  past  times,  and  stand  as  the  great  obstacle  to  harmony 
between  nations.  The  student  of  politics  can  but  hope 
that  in  time  the  pressure  of  vast  armies  kept  on  a  war- 
footing  may  prove  unbearable  to  the  European  nations  which 
maintain  them,  and  that  the  time  may  come  when  the 
standing  army  may  shrink  to  a  nucleus  ready  for  the 
exigencies  of  actual  war  if  it  shall  arise,  while  serving  in 
peace  time  as  a  branch  of  the  national  police. 


CHAPTER   X. 

ARTS  OF  LIFE — {contiHued). 

Dwellings: — Caves,  229 — Hut?,  230 — Tents,  231 — Houses,  231 — Stone 
and  Brick  Building,  232 — Arch,  235 — Development  of  Architec- 
ture, 235.  Dress  : — Painting  skin,  236 — Tattooing,  237 — Defor- 
mation of  Skull,  &c.,  240 — Ornaments,  241 — Clothing  of  Bark, 
Skin,  &c.,  244 — Mats,  246 — Spinning,  Weaving,  246 — Sewing, 
249 — Garments,  249.  Navigation  : — Floats,  252 — Boats,  253 — 
Rafts,  255 — Outriggers,  255 — Paddles  and  Oais,  256 — Sails,  256 — 
Galleys  and  Ships,  257. 

We  have  next  to  examine  the  dwellings  of  mankind. 
Thinking  of  the  nests  of  birds,  the  dams  of  beavers,  the 
tree-platforms  of  apes,  it  can  scarcely  be  supposed  that 
man  at  any  time  was  unable  to  build  himself  a  shelter. 
That  he  does  not  always  do  so  is  mostly  because  while  on 
the  move  from  place  to  place  he  may  be  content  to  sleep  in 
the  open,  or  take  to  the  natural  shelter  of  a  tree  or  rock. 
Thus  in  the  Andaman  Islands  the  roving  savages  have  been 
noticed  to  resort  to  the  sea-shore,  where,  under  some  over- 
hanging cliff  that  kept  off  the  wind,  they  would  scoop 
themselves  out  each  a  hole  in  the  sand  to  lie  in.  Rock- 
shelters  under  the  cliffs  were  in  Europe  the  resort  of  the 
ancient  savages,  as  is  proved  by  the  bones  and  flint  flakes 
and  other  remains  that  are  found  lying  there  in  the  ground. 


250  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Caves  are  ready-made  houses  for  beast  or  man.  It  has 
been  already  mentioned  (p.  31)  how  in  such  countries  as  Eng- 
land and  France,  caverns  were  the  abodes  of  the  old  tribes 
of  the  reindeer  and  mammoth  period,  and  the  Bushmen  of 
South  Africa  are  a  modern  example  of  rude  tribes  thus  given 
to  dwelling  in  caves  in  the  rocks.  But  caverns  are  so  con- 
venient, that  they  are  now  and  then  still  used  in  the  civilized 
world,  and  most  of  us  have  seen  some  cave  in  a  cliff  forming 
the  back  of  a  fisherman's  cottage,  or  at  least  a  storehouse. 
It  is  not  so  much  with  these  natural  dwellings  that  we  are 
here  concerned  as  with  artificial  structures,  however  rude, 
set  up  by  man  for  his  shelter. 

In  the  depths  of  Brazilian  forests,  travellers  have  come 
upon  the  dwellings  of  the  naked  Puris,  which  are  not  even 
huts,  only  sloping  screens  made  by  setting  up  a  row  of  huge 
palm-leaves  some  eight  feet  long,  leaning  against  a  cross- 
pole.  Being  put  up  to  windward,  this  shelters  the  lazy 
Indian  as  he  lolls  in  his  hammock  slung  between  two  trees, 
and  with  the  dense  foliage  overhead  life  is  not  comfortless  on 
fine  days,  though  in  bad  weather  the  family  and  dogs  have 
to  crouch  defenceless  round  the  wood  fire  on  the  ground. 
Even  in  these  tropical  forests,  what  is  generally  met  with  is 
a  real  hut,  thougli  it  may  be  such  a  rude  one  as  the  Boto- 
cudos  make  with  these  same  great  palm-leaves,  sticking  a 
number  of  them  with  their  stalks  in  the  ground  in  a  circle, 
and  bringing  their  points  together,  so  as  to  form  a  roof 
overhead.  The  Patachos  go  to  work  more  artificially,  bend- 
ing together  young  growing  trees  and  j^oles  stuck  in  the 
ground,  so  that  by  binding  their  tops  together  they  form  a 
framework  which  is  then  thatched  over  with  large  leaves. 
Much  the  same  lesson  in  primitive  architecture  may  be 
leamt  from  the  natives  of  Australia,  among  whom  a  party 
camping  out  will  be  content  to  set  up  a  line  of  leafy  boughs 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  231 

in  the  ground  to  form  a  screen  or  breakwind  for  the  night ; 
but  when  they  take  the  pains  to  interlace  such  boughs  over- 
head, the  screen  becomes  a  hut,  and  where  they  stay  for  a 
while  they  will  make  a  regular  framework  of  branches, 
covering  them  in  with  sheets  of  bark,  or  leaves  and  grass, 
and  even  laying  on  sods  or  daubing  the  outside  with  clay. 
The  invention  of  the  simple  round  hut  is  thus  easily  under- 
stood. It  is  plain,  too,  how  a  conical  hut,  when  roving 
tribes  like  the  American  Indians  carry  from  place  to  place 
its  poles  and  skins  or  sheets  of  bark,  becomes  in  fact  a 
portable  tent,  and  this  shows  how  tents  came  to  be  invented. 
The  more  cultured  herdsmen  of  the  East  carry  for  their 
tent-coverings  sheets  of  felted  hair  or  wool,  and  we  ourselves 
use  for  temporary  shelter  tents  of  canvas.  Indeed  one  has 
only  to  look  at  the  common  bell-tent  of  the  soldier  to  see 
that  it  is  a  transformed  savage  hut.  Now  the  circular  hut, 
whether  beehive  or  conical,  is  low  to  creep  into  and  small 
to  lie  or  crouch  in.  More  room  is  often  got  by  digging  the 
earth  out  some  feet  deep  within,  but  a  greater  improvement  in 
construction  is  to  raise  the  hut  itself  on  posts  or  a  wall,  so 
that  what  was  at  first  the  whole  house  now  becomes  the 
roof.  Thus  is  built  the  round  hut  with  its  side-posts  filled 
in  with  wattle  and  mud,  or  its  solid  earthen  wall  carrying 
the  thatched  roof  which  may  reach  beyond  in  shady  eaves. 
Such  were  in  ancient  times  common  peasants'  dwellings  in 
Europe,  as  they  still  are  in  other  quarters  of  the  world,  and 
indeed  we  perhaps  keep  up  a  memory  of  them  in  the  round 
thatched  summer-houses  in  our  gardens,  which  are  curiously 
like  the  real  huts  of  barbarians.  Next,  as  African  travellers 
remark,  one  great  sign  of  higher  civilization  is  when  people 
begin  to  build  their  houses  square-cornered  instead  of  round. 
The  circular  hut  to  be  easily  built  must  be  small,  and  room 
is  best  gained  by  building  the  house  oblong,  with   a  ridge 


232  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

pole  along  the  roof  where  the  sloping  poles  from  the  sides 
meet.  By  being  able  to  build  to  any  required  length,  it 
became  possible  for  many  families,  often  twenty,  to  live 
together  in  village-houses  as  rude  peoples  often  do.  In 
barbaric  countries  spacious  houses  are  built  with  the  roofs 
carried  on  lofty  posts  with  cross-timbers,  or  on  solid  walls 
of  elarth  or  stones  ;  in  fact  they  are  constructed  on  much  the 
same  principles  as  our  modern  houses,  though  more  rudely. 

It  does  not  seem  difficult  to  make  out  how  stone  and 
brick  architecture  came  into  use.  Where  wood  is  scarce, 
men  readily  take  to  building  walls  of  stones,  turf,  or  earth. 
Thus  the  Australians  are  known  to  build  shelters  by  heaping 
up  loose  stones  as  a  wall,  and  roofing  with  sticks  laid  across. 
Rough  stones,  though  they  make  good  embankments  and 
low  walls,  would  be  too  unsteady  for  high  walls,  except 
slaty  and  stratified  slabs  which  form  natural  building-stones. 
With  mere  stones  out  of  the  ground  dwellings  would 
hardly  be  built  of  a  higher  kind  than  the  curious  beehive- 
houses  of  the  Hebrides,  whose  small  rudely  vaulted  cham- 
bers are  formed  by  the  piled  stones  overlapping  inwards 
till  they  almost  meet  above,  and  covered  in  with  growing 
turf,  so  that  they  look  like  grassy  hillocks  with  passages  for 
the  dwellers  to  creep  in.  This  primitive  building  is  very 
ancient,  and  though  such  houses  are  no  longer  made,  the 
old  ones  still  serve  as  shealings  in  summer.  The  ancient 
Scotch  underground  dwellings  or  "weems,"  [i.e.  caves)  have 
chambers  of  rough  stones,  and  remind  antiquaries  of  Tacitus' 
account  of  the  caves  dug  by  the  ancient  Germans  and 
heaped  over  with  dirt,  where  they  stored  their  grain  and 
took  refuge  themselves  from  the  cold,  and  in  time  of  war 
from  the  enemy.  When  the  craft  of  the  mason  is  brought 
in,  buildings  of  a  higher  order  begin.  The  stones  may 
at  first   be  merely    trimmed   to   fit  one   another   like   the 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  233 

pieces  of  a  mosaic,  as  in  the  so-called  Cyclopean  stone- 
work of  old  Etruscan  and  Roman  walls.  But  the  world 
soon  adopts  a  higher  way,  not  arranging  the  plan  to  suit 
the  stones,  but  shaping  the  stones  to  fit  the  work, 
especially  using  rectangular  blocks  of  stone  to  lay  down 
in  regular  courses  of  masonry.  In  ancient  Egypt,  the 
masons  hewed  and  smoothed  even  granite  and  porphyry  to 
a  finish  which  is  envied  by  the  architects  of  our  own  day, 
and  the  pyramids  of  Gizeh  are  as  wonderful  for  the  fine 
masonry  of  their  slopes,  chambers,  and  passages,  as  for 
their  prodigious  size.  Our  modern  notion  of  a  stone  build- 
ing is  that  the  blocks  of  stone  are  to  be  fixed  together  with 
a  layer  of  mortar  to  bind  them,  but  in  the  old  and  beautiful 
architecture  of  Egypt  and  Greece  the  faced  stone  blocks  lie 
on  one  another,  having  no  cement  to  hold  them,  and  needing 
none.  Clamps  of  metal  were  used  when  required  to  hold 
the  stones  together.  Cement  or  mortar  (so  called  from  the 
mortar  or  trough  in  which  it  was  mixed)  was  also  well  known 
in  the  ancient  world.  The  Roman  builders  not  only  used 
the  common  lime-and-sand  mortar,  which  hardens  by  absorb- 
ing carbonic  acid  from  the  air,  but  they  also  knew  how  by 
adding  volcanic  ash  or  pozzolana  to  make  a  water-resisting 
cement,  whence  the  name  of  "  Roman  cement "  given  to  a 
composition  used  by  our  masons.  Mention  has  been  already 
made  of  the  practice  of  coating  the  sides  of  the  savage 
bough-hut  with  clay.  The  ancient  people  who  built  their 
settlements  on  piles  out  in  the  Swiss  lakes  used  to  do  this, 
as  is  proved  by  bits  of  the  clay  coating  which  were  acci- 
dentally baked  when  the  huts  were  burnt  down,  and  fell 
into  the  water,  where  they  may  still  be  found,  showing  the 
impressions  of  the  long-perished  reed  cabins  on  which  the 
moist  clay  was  plastered.  We  still  have  something  of  the 
kind  in  what  cottage-builders  call  "wattle  and  daub."     One 


234  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

also  sees  now  and  then  in  an  English  country  lane  a  cottage 
or  cowhouse  which  is  a  rehc  of  another  sort  of  primitive 
architecture,  its  walls  being  simply  built  of  "  cob  ",  that  is, 
clay  mixed  with  straw.  Such  hut-walls  of  clay  or  mud  are 
very  usual  in  dry  climates  such  as  Egypt,  where  they  are 
cheaper  and  better  than  timber.  This  being  so,  there  is  no 
difficulty  in  understanding  how  sun-dried  bricks  came  into 
use,  these  being  simply  convenient  blocks  of  the  same  mud 
or  loam  mixed  with  straw  which  was  used  to  build  the 
cottage  walls.  These  sun-dried  bricks  were  used  in  the 
East  from  higli  antiquity.  Some  of  the  Egyptian  pyramids 
still  standing  are  built  of  them,  and  the  pictures  show  how 
the  clay  was  temi)ered  and  the  large  bricks  formed  in  wooden 
moulds  much  as  in  modern  brickfields.  With  these  the 
architects  of  Nineveh  built  the  palace  walls  ten  or  fifteen 
feet  thick,  which  were  panelled  with  the  slabs  of  sculptured 
alabaster.  For  such  sun-dried  bricks,  clay  and  water  form 
a  sufficient  cement.  Building  with  mud-bricks,  which  indeed 
suits  the  climate  well,  goes  on  in  these  countries  as  of  old. 
They  were  used  also  in  America,  and  to  this  day  the  traveller 
in  such  districts  as  Mexico  will  often  find  himself  lodged  in 
a  house  built  of  them.  The  sun-dried  brick  is  there  called 
adobe,  a  word  which  is  actually  their  ancient  Egyptian  name 
lob,  which  when  adopted  into  Arabic  became  with  the 
article,  ai'tob,2iX\(l  thence  was  adopted  into  Spanish  as  adobe. 
Baked  bricks  seem  to  have  been  a  later  invention,  easy 
enough  to  nations  who  baked  earthen  pots,  but  only  wanted 
in  more  rainy  climates.  Thus  the  Romans,  whom  mere 
mud-bricks  would  not  have  suited,  carried  to  great  perfection 
the  making  of  kiln-burnt  bricks  and  tiles. 

For  ordinary  house-building,  we  now  have  recourse  to  the 
mason  or  bricklayer  to  build  the  walls,  and  tiles  or  slates 
are  an  improvement  on  the  old   thatch.      But    we    so  far 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  235 

keep  to  the  old  wooden  architecture,  that  the  floors 
and  the  tiraberuig  of  the  roof  are  still  wood-work.  For 
tombs  and  temples,  however,  built  to  last  for  ages,  means 
were  early  wanted  of  roofing  over  spaces  with  the  bricks 
or  stones  themselves  without  trusting  to  wooden  beams. 
There  are  two  modes  of  doing  this,  the  false  arch  and 
the  real  arch,  which  are  both  ancient.  The  false  arch  is 
an  arrangement  which  would  occur  to  any  builder,  in  fact  it 
is  what  children  make  in  building  with  wooden  bricks, 
when  they  set  them  overlapping  more  and  more  till  the 
top  ones  come  near  enough  for  one  brick  to  cover  the 
gap.  Passages  and  chambers  roofed  in  like  this  with 
projecting  blocks  of  stone  may  be  seen  in  the  pyramids 
of  Egypt,  in  ancient  tombs  of  Greece  and  Italy,  in  the 
ruined  palaces  of  Central  America ;  and  thus  are  built  the 
domes  of  the  Jain  temples  in  India.  It  does  not  follow 
that  the  architects  were  ignorant  of  the  real  arch ;  they 
may  have  objected  to  it  from  its  tendency  to  thrust  the 
walls  out.  It  is  not  known  exactly  how  and  when  the 
arch  was  invented,  but  the  idea  might  present  itself  even 
in  roofing  over  doorways  with  rough  stones.  In  the 
tombs  of  ancient  Egypt  real  arches  are  to  be  seen,  con- 
structed in  mud-bricks,  or  later  in  stone,  by  architects  who 
quite  understood  the  principle.  Yet  though  the  arch 
was  known  in  what  we  call  ancient  times,  it  was  not  at  once 
accepted  by  the  world.  It  is  remarkable  that  the  Greek 
architects  of  the  classic  period  never  took  to  it.  It  was  left 
to  the  Romans,  who  applied  it  with  admirable  skill,  and 
from  whose  vaulted  roofs,  bridges,  and  domes,  those  of  the 
mediaeval  and  modern  world  are  derived. 

In  thus  looking  over  the  architecture  of  the  world,  we 
see  that  its  origins  lie  too  far  back  for  history  to  record  its 
beginning  and  earliest  progress.      Still  there  is  reason  to 


236  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

believe  that,  in  architecture  as  in  other  arts,  man  began  with 
the  simple  and  easy  before  he  came  on  to  the  complex  and 
difificult.  There  are  many  signs  of  stone  architecture  having 
grown  out  of  an  earlier  wooden  architecture.  Thus  on 
looking  at  the  Lykian  tombs  in  the  entrance-hall  of  the 
British  Museum,  it  will  be  seen  that  though  they  are  of 
hewn  stone,  their  forms  are  copied  from  wooden  beams 
and  joists,  so  that  the  mason  shows  by  his  very  patterns 
that  he  has  taken  the  place  of  an  earlier  carpenter.  Even 
in  the  early  stone-work  of  Egypt,  traces  of  wooden  forms 
are  to  be  seen.  In  India  there  are  stone  buildings  whose 
columns  and  architraves  are  not  less  plainly  copied  from 
wooden  posts,  and  horizontal  beams  resting  on  them.  It 
is  possible  that  when  men  first  took  to  setting  up  stone 
columns  and  supporting  stone  blocks  upon  them,  this  idea 
may  have  come  into  their  minds  from  the  wooden  posts 
and  beams  they  had  been  used  to.  But  when  it  is  said,  as 
it  often  has  been,  that  the  porticos  of  Greek  temples  are 
copies  in  stone  of  older  wooden  structures,  practical  archi- 
tects object  that  the  Parthenon  is  not  really  like  carpenter's 
work.  Indeed  it  is  known  that  the  Greeks  did  not  invent 
their  own  column-architecture,  but  taking  the  idea  of  it 
from  what  they  saw  in  Egypt  and  other  countries,  carried 
it  out  according  to  their  own  genius. 

After  dwellings,  we  come  to  examine  clothing.  It  has 
first  to  be  noticed  that  some  low  tribes,  especially  in  the 
tropical  forests  of  South  America,  have  been  found  by 
travellers  living  quite  naked.  But  even  among  the  rudest 
of  our  race,  and  in  hot  districts  where  clothing  is  of  least 
practical  use,  something  is  generally  worn,  either  from  ideas 
of  decency  or  for  ornament.  Where  little  or  no  clothing 
is  worn,  it  is  common  to  paint  the  body.  The  Andaman 
islanders,  who  plaster  themselves  with  a  mixture  of  lard  and 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  237 

coloured  earth,  have  a  practical  reason  for  so  doing,  this 
coat  of  paint  protecting  their  skin  from  heat  and  mosquitos ; 
but  they  go  off  into  love  of  display  when  they  proceed  to 
draw  lines  on  the  paint  with  their  fingers,  or  when  a  dandy 
will  colour  one  side  of  his  face  red,  and  the  other  olive- 
green,  and  make  an  ornamental  border-line  where  the  two 
colours  meet  down  his  chest  and  stomach.  Among  the 
relics  of  the  ancient  cave-men  of  Europe  are  hollowed 
stones,  which  were  their  primitive  mortars  for  grinding  the 
ochre  and  other  colours  for  painting  themselves.  Indeed, 
few  habits  mark  the  lower  stages  of  human  life  so  well  as 
the  delight  in  body-patterns  of  bold  spots  and  stripes  in 
striking  colours,  familiar  to  us  in  pictures  of  Australians 
dancing  at  a  corroboree,  or  Americans  working  themselves 
up  to  frenzy  m  the  scalp-dance.  The  primitive  sign  of 
mourning  also  makes  its  appearance  where  savage  mourners 
blacken  (or  whiten)  themselves  over.  In  the  higher  civiliza- 
tion, faded  beauties  may  still  make  a  poor  attempt  to 
revive  youthful  bloom  with  touches  of  red  and  white.  But 
the  ancient  war-paint  is  now  looked  down  on  as  a  sign  of 
litter  barbarism  ;  so  much  so  that  the  ancient  Britons,  though 
a  nation  of  considerable  civilization,  have  been  treated  by 
many  historians  as  mere  savages  because  they  kept  up  this 
rude  practice,  as  Caesar  says,  staining  themselves  blue  with 
woad,  and  so  being  of  horrider  aspect  in  war.  Among  our- 
selves the  guise  which,  was  so  terrific  in  the  Red  Indian 
warrior  has  come  down  to  make  the  circus-clown  a  pattern 
of  folly.  It  is  very  likely  that  his  paint-striped  face  may 
represent  a  fashion  come  down  from  the  ancient  times  when 
paint  was  worn  by  the  barbarians  of  Europe,  much  as  in 
Japan  actors  paint  their  faces  with  bright  streaks  of  red, 
doubtless  keeping  up  what  was  once  an  ordinary  decoration. 
When  the  skin  is  tattooed,  the  chief  purpose  of  this  is  no 


238  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [cHAr. 

doubt  beauty,  as  where  the  New  Zealander  had  himself 
covered  with  patterns  of  curved  hncs  such  as  he  would 
adorn  his  club  or  his  canoe  with;  it  was  considered  shame- 
ful for  a  w'oman  not  to  have  her  mouth  tattooed,  for  people 
would  say  with  disgust  "  she  has  red  lips."  Tattooing 
prevails  as  widely  among  the  lower  races  of  the  world  as 
painting,  and  the  fashionable  designs  range  from  a  few  blue 
lines  on  the  face  or  arras,  up  to  the  flower-patterns  with 
which  the  skins  of  the  Formosans  are  covered  like  damask. 
Where  the  art  is  carried  to  perfection  as  in  Polynesia,  the 
skin  is  punctured,  and  the  charcoal-colour  introduced,  by 
tapping  rows  of  litde  prickers.  But  a  rougher  mode  is 
common,  as  in  Australia  or  Africa,  where  gashes  are  made 
and  wood-ashes  rubbed  in  so  that  the  w'ound  heals  in  a 
knob  or  a  ridge.  Marks  on  the  skin  often  serve  other 
purposes  than  ornament,  as  in  Africa,  where  a  long  scar 
on  a  man's  thigh  may  mean  that  he  has  done  valiantly  in 
battle,  or  the  tribe  or  nation  a  negro  belongs  to  may  be 
indicated  by  his  mark,  for  instance,  a  pair  of  long  cuts  down 
both  cheeks,  or  a  row  of  raised  pimples  down  his  forehead 
to  the  tip  of  his  nose.  Higher  up  in  civilization,  tattooing 
still  lasts  on,  as  where  Arab  women  will  slighdy  touch  up 
their  faces,  arms,  or  ankles  with  the  needle,  and  our  sailors 
amuse  themselves  with  having  an  anchor  or  a  sliip  in  full 
sail  done  with  gunpowder  on  their  arms,  but  in  this  last 
case  the  original' purpose  is  lost,  for  the  picture  is  hidden 
under  the  sleeve.  Naturally,  as  clothing  comes  more  and 
more  to  cover  the  body,  the  primitive  skin-decorations  cease, 
for  what  is  the  use  of  adorning  oneself  out  of  sight? 

The  head  is  frequently  cropped  or  shaved  close  as  a  sign 
of  mourning.  Some  tribes  thus  go  bcld  always,  like  the 
Andaman  islanders  ;  or  let  the  hair  grow  in  tonsure-fashion 
in  a  ring  round  the  shaved  crown,  like  the  Coroado  (that  is, 


X.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


239 


"  crowned  '')  Indians  of  Brazil ;  or  wear  a  shaven  head  with 
a  long  scalp-lock  or  pigtail  like  the  North  American  Indians, 
or  the  Manchus  of  Tartary,  from  whom  the  modern  Chinese 


Fig.  56. — Natives  of  Lepers'  Island  (New  Hebrides.) 

have  adopted  this  habit.  A  curious  mode  of  twisting  the 
hair  with  strips  of  bark  into  hundreds  of  long  thin  ringlets 
is  seen  in  the  portraits  of  natives  of  Lepers'  Island,  Fig.  66. 


240  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Various  tribes  grind  their  front  teeth  to  points,  or  cut 
them  away  in  angular  patterns,  so  that  in  Africa  and  else- 
where a  man's  tribe  is  often  known  by  the  cut  of  his  teeth. 
Long  finger-nails  are  noticed  even  among  ourselves  as  show- 
ing that  the  owner  docs  no  manual  labour,  and  in  China 
and  neighbouring  countries  they  are  allowed  to  grow  to  a 
monstrous  length  as  a  symbol  of  nobility,  ladies  wearing 
silver  cases  to  protect  them,  or  at  least  as  a  pretence  that 
they  are  there  (see  the  portraits  of  Siamese  actresses  in 
royal  dress,  Fig.  32).  Or  the  nails  may  be  let  to  grow  as  a 
sign  that  the  wearer  leads  a  religious  life,  and  does  no 
worldly  work,  as  in  the  accompanying  figure  of  the  hand  of 
a  Chinese  ascetic.  Fig.  67. 

As  any  nation's  idea  of  beauty  is  apt  to  be  according  to 
the  type  of  their  own  race,  they  like  to  see  their  distinctive 
features  exaggerated.  Looking  at  a  Hottentot  face,  Fig.  12  c, 
one  understands  why  the  mothers  would  squeeze  the 
babies'  snub  noses  yet  further  in,  while  in  ancient  times  a 
little  Persian  prince  would  have  a  bold  aquiline  nose  shaped 
for  him,  to  come  like  Fig.  1 1  /'.  In  all  quarters  of  the 
globe  is  found  the  custom  of  compressing  infants'  heads  by 
bandages  and  pads  to  make  the  little  plastic  skull  grow  to 
an  approved  shape.  But  as  to  what  that  shape  ought  to  be, 
tastes  differ  extremely.  Li  the  Columbia  Riser  district, 
some  Flathead  tribes  will  so  flatten  out  the  forehead  that 
their  front  faces  look  like  a  pear  with  the  large  end  upper- 
most, while  neighbouring  tribes  press  in  the  upper  part  of 
the  skull  so  that  their  faces  look  like  the  pear  with  the 
small  end  up.  Hippokrates,  the  ancient  physician,  mentions 
the  artificially  deformed  skulls  of  the  Makrokephali  or 
"long-heads"  of  the  Black  Sea  district.  The  genuine 
Turkish  skull  is  of  the  broad  Tatar  form,  while  the  nations 
of  Greece  and  Asia  Mino"r  have  oval  skulls,  which  gives  the 


X.] 


ARTS  OF  LIFE. 


241 


reason  why  at  Constantinople  it  became  the  fashion  to 
mould  the  babies'  skulls  round,  so  that  they  grew  up  with 
the  broad  head  of  the  conquering  race.  Relics  of  such 
barbarism  linger  on  in  the  midst  of  civilization,  and  not 
long  ago  a  French  physician  surprised  the  world  by  the  fact 
that  nurses  in  Normandy  were  still  giving  the  children's 
heads  a  sugar-loaf  shape  by  bandages   and   a   tight   cap. 


Fig.  67. — Hand  of  Chinese  ascetic. 

while   in    Brittany  they  preferred  to  press  it   round.     No 
doubt  they  are  doing  so  to  this  day. 

The  propensity  to    beautify  the   body    with    ornaments 

belongs  to  human  nature  as  low  down  as  we  can  follow  it. 

In  South  America  the  naked  people  were  adorned  with  rings 

on  legs  and  arms,  and  one  tribe  had  as  their  only  apparel 

17 


242 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


a  macaw's  feather  stuck  in  a  hole  at  each  corner 
of  their  mouths,  and  strings  of  shells  hanging  from  their 
noses,  ears,  and  under-lips.  This  latter  case  is  a  good 
example  of  the  ornaments  being  fastened  into  the  body, 
which  is  pierced  or  cut  to  receive  them.  Various  tribes 
wear  labrets  or  lip-ornaments,  some  gradually  enlarging  the 
Jiole  through  the  under-lip  till  it  will  take  a  wooden  plug 
two  or  three  inches  across,  as  in  the  portrait  (Fig.  68)  of  a 
woman  of  the   Botocudos,  a  Brazilian   tribe  w'ho  owe  their 


Fig 


Botocudo  woman  with  lip-and  ear-ornaments. 


name  to  this  labret,  wliich  the  Portuguese  compared  to  a 
hotoqiie  or  bung.  Ear-ornaments,  as  the  figure  shows,  are 
put  in  the  same  way  in  the  lobe  of  the  ear,  which  they 
stretch  so  that  when  the  disc  of  wood  is  taken  out  it  falls 
in  a  loop  and  even  reaches  the  shoulder.  Thus  it  is  possible 
that  there  may  be  some  truth  in  the  favourite  wonder-tale 
of  the  old  geographers,  about  the  tribes  whose  great  ears 
reached  down  to  their  shoulders,  though  the  story  had  to 
be  stretched  a  good  deal  farther  when  it  was  declared  that 


X]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  243 

they  lay  down  on  one  ear  and  covered  themselves  with  the 
other  for  a  blanket.  The  great  interest  to  us  in  these 
savage  ornaments  is  in  the  tendency  of  higher  civilization  to 
give  them  up.  In  Persia  one  still  finds  the  nose-ring  through 
one  side  of  a  woman's  nostril,  but  European  taste  would  be 
shocked  by  this,  though  it  allows  the  ear  to  be  pierced  to 
carry  an  ear-ring.  As  to  ornaments  which  are  merely  put 
on,  they  are  mostly  feathers,  flowers,  or  trinkets  worn  in 
the  hair,  or  strung-ornaments  or  rings  on  the  neck,  arms,  and 
legs.  In  what  remote  times  man  had  begun  to  take  pleasure 
in  such  decorations  may  be  seen  by  the  periwinkle-shells 
bored  for  stringing  found  in  the  cave  of  Cro-Magnon, 
which  no  doubt  made  necklaces  and  bracelets  for  the 
girls  of  the  mammoth-period.  In  the  modern  world  neck- 
laces and  bracelets  remain  in  unchanged  use,  though  anklets, 
such  as  the  bangles  of  the  Hindu  dancing-girl,  have  of  course 
disappeared  from  the  costume  of  civilized  wearers  of  shoes 
and  stockings.  It  would  not  suit  our  customs  to  keep  an 
affectionate  memory  of  dead  relatives  by  wearing  their  finger 
and  toe  bones  strung  as  beads,  as  the  Andaman  women 
do,  but  our  ladies  keep  in  fashion  barbaric  necklaces  of  such 
things  as  shells,  seeds,  tigers'  claws,  and  especially  polished 
stones.  The  wearing  of  shining  stones  as  ornaments  lasts 
on,  whether  they  have  come  to  be  precious  pearls  or  rubies, 
or  glass  beads  which  are  imitation  stones.  Where  metal 
becomes  known  it  at  once  comes  into  use  for  ornament, 
and  this  reaches  its  height  where  amused  travellers  describe 
some  Dayak  girl  with  her  arms  sheathed  in  a  coil  of  stout 
brass  wire,  or  some  African  belle  whose  great  copper  rings 
on  her  limbs  get  so  hot  in  the  sun  that  an  attendant  carries 
a  water-pot  to  sluice  them  down  now  and  then.  To  see 
gold  jewelry  of  the  highest  order,  the  student  should 
examine    that    of   the    ancients,    such    as    the    Egyptian, 


244  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Greek,  and  Etruscan  in  the  British  Museum,  and  that  of 
mediaeval  Europe.  The  art  seems  now  to  have  passed  its 
prime,  and  become  a  manufacture,  of  which  the  best  pro- 
ducts are  imitations  from  the  antique.  The  cutting  of 
precious  stones  such  as  diamonds  into  facets  is,  however,  a 
modern  art.  As  to  finger-rings,  if  their  use  arose  out  of 
the  signet-rings  of  Egypt  and  Babylon,  then  the  few  which 
are  still  engraved  as  seals  keep  up  the  original  idea,  while 
those  which  only  carry  pearls  or  diamonds  have  turned  into 
mere  ornaments. 

To  come  now  to  clothing  proper.  The  man  who  wants 
a  garment  gets  it  in  the  simplest  way  when  he  takes  the 
covering  off  a  tree  or  a  beast,  and  puts  it  on  himself. 
The  bark  of  trees  provides  clothes  for  rude  races  in  many 
districts,  as  for  instance  in  the  curious  use  which  natives  of 
the  Brazilian  forests  have  long  made  of  the  so-called  "  shirt- 
tree  "  (lecythis).  A  man  cuts  a  four  or  five  feet  length  of 
the  trunk,  or  a  large  branch,  and  gets  the  bark  off  in  an 
entire  tube,  which  he  has  then  only  to  soak  and  beat  soft 
and  to  cut  slits  for  armholes,  to  be  able  to  slip  it  on  as 
a  ready-made  shirt ;  or  a  short  length  will  make  a  woman's 
skirt.  The  wearing  of  bark  has  sometimes  been  kept  up  as 
a  sign  of  primitive  simplicity.  Thus  in  India  it  is  written  in 
the  laws  of  Manu  that  when  the  grey-haired  Brahman  retires 
into  the  forest  to  end  his  days  in  religious  meditation,  he 
shall  wear  a  skin  or  a  garment  of  bark,  A  ruder  people, 
the  Kayans  of  Borneo,  while  in  common  life  they  like  the 
smart  foreign  stuffs  of  the  trader,  when  they  go  into  mourn- 
ing throw  them  off  and  return  to  the  rude  native  garment  of 
bark-cloth.  In  Polynesia  the  manufacture  of  iapa  from  the 
bark  of  the  paper-mulberry  was  carried  to  great  perfection, 
the  women  beating  it  out  with  grooved  clubs  into  a  sort  of 
vegetable  felt,  and  ornamenting  it  with  coloured  patterns 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE  245 

stamped  on.  The  people  were  delighted  with  the  white 
paper  of  the  Europeans,  and  dressed  themselves  in  it  as  a 
fine  variety  of  tapa,  till  they  found  that  the  first  shower  of 
rain  spoilt  it.  Leaves,  also,  are  made  into  aprons  or  skirts 
which  clothe  various  rude  tribes.  Not  only  are  there  "  leaf- 
wearers  "  in  India,  but  at  a  yearly  festival  in  Madras  the 
whole  low-caste  population  cast  off  their  ordinary  clothing, 
and  put  on  aprons  of  leafy  twigs. 

The  skin  garments  worn  by  the  savages  of  the  ancient 
world  have  rotted  away  these  many  thousand  years,  but  we 
may  see  how  generally  they  used  to  be  worn,  by  the  vast 
numbers  of  skin-dressing  implements  of  sharp  stone  (see 
Fig.  54,  c),  found  in  the  ground.  Till  lately  the  Patagonians, 
when  they  came  on  their  journeys  to  a  place  where  suitable 
flint  or  obsidian  was  to  be  found,  would  load  themselves  with 
a  supply  of  lumps  to  chip  into  these  primitive  currier's 
scrapers.  Savages,  that  their  fur  robes  or  deer-skin  shirts 
should  not  dry  stiff,  know  how  to  dress  the  leather  skilfully 
by  such  processes  as  rubbing  in  fat  or  marrow,  and  suppling 
with  the  hands  ;  they  also  smoke  it,  to  keep.  Thus  the 
North  Americans  know  how  to  prepare  deer-skin  for 
garments  into  something  like  what  we  call  chamois  leather. 
But  it  hardly  seems  as  though  the  lower  races  had  taught 
themselves  the  process  of  actual  tanning  with  bark  or 
galls,  where  the  tannic  acid  forms  in  the  substance  of 
the  skin  insoluble  compounds  which  resist  change  for  ages, 
so  that  the  beautiful  cut  and  embossed  work  in  tanned 
leather  from  ancient  Egypt  may  still  be  seen  perfectly 
preserved  in  our  museums.  In  such  riding  countries  as 
Mexico,  suits  of  leather  are  still  worn,  while  in  Europe  the 
buff  jerkin  and  the  huntsman's  buckskins  are  disappearing  ; 
but  it  is  still  everywhere  acknowledged  that  there  is  nothing 
like  leather  for  covering  the  feet.     In  wearing    furs,  our 


246  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

height  of  kixury  keeps  curiously  close  to  the  savage  fashion 
of  the  primitive  world. 

Plaiting  and  matting  are  arts  of  such  simplicity  that  they 
are  known  to  savages.  In  hot  countries  matting  is  convenient 
for  dress,  as  when  South  Sea  Islanders  make  gowns  of  plaited 
grass,  and  the  old  art  still  provides  the  civilized  world  with 
hats  and  bonnets  of  straw  or  chip.  Next,  if  we  pull  a  scrap 
of  woven  cloth  to  pieces,  we  see  that  it  is  in  fact  a  piece  of 
matting  done  with  thread.  Therefore,  to  understand  weav- 
ing, we  have  to  begin  with  the  making  of  string  or  thread. 
All  mankind  can  twist  string,  but  some  tribes  do  it  in  a 
far  lower  way  than  we  are  accustomed  to.  They  take 
vegetable  fibre,  wool  or  hair,  and  twist  it  by  rolling  between 
their  flat  palms,  or  with  one  hand  on  the  thigh.  It  is  quite 
worth  the  reader's  while  to  try  to  imitate  this  process,  by 
twisting  two  strands  of  tow,  and  then  rolling  these  into 
one  with  the  reverse  movement.  At  any  rate  he  will  find 
how  much  practice  he  would  take  to  do  it  as  cleverly  as 
the  Australians  when  they  have  the  women's  hair  cut  to 
furnish  a  supply  of  fishing-lines,  or  the  New  Zealanders  when 
they  run  out  a  handful  of  native  flax  by  inches  into  a  neat 
and  perfect  cord.  But  the  higher  nations  use  a  mechanical 
contrivance,  the  spindle,  for  thread-making,  and  the  question 
is  how  this  came  to  be  invented.  Fig.  69  shows  what  may 
have  happened.  At  a  is  figured  a  cross-stick,  form- 
ing a  simple  reel  or  winder,  on  which  the  Australians 
wind  their  hair-string  just  mentioned.  Now  if  it  had 
occurred  to  one  of  these  savages  to  secure  his  thread  by 
drawing  it  into  a  split  at  the  end  of  the  stick,  he  might 
have  seen  that  by  giving  the  hanging  reel  a  twirl  he  could 
make  it  twist  a  new  strand  for  him  much  faster  than  he 
could  do  between  his  hands.  The  Australian  never  saw 
how  to   do  this.     But  looking  at  b  in  the   figure,    which 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  247 

represents  an  ancient  Egyptian  woman  spinning,  it  is 
evident  that  such  a  spindle  as  she  is  working  with  may  have 
been  invented  by  turning  a  mere  reel  to  this  new  use. 
Such  spindles  were  known  over  the  ancient  civilized  world, 
and  among  the  commonest  objects  dug  up  near  old  dwell- 
ings are  the  spindle-whorls  of  stone  or  terra-cotta,  like 
great  buttons,  which  with  a  stick  through  the  middle  formed 
the  whole  simple  implement.  Spindles  may  still  be  seen  in 
the  hands  of  peasant  women  in  Italy  or  Switzerland.  The 
spinning-wheel  of  the  middle  ages  was  a  little  machine  to 


Fig.  6g.—a,  Australian  winder  for  hand-twisted  cord;  i>,  Egyptian  woman  spinning 
with  the  spindle. 

drive  a  spindle,  and  the  spinning-frames  in  factories  show 
the  ancient  instrument  worked  with  still  more  modern  im- 
provements, a  hundred  spindles  in  a  row  being  driven 
rapidly  by  steam-power,  and  all  tended  by  a  single  operative. 
The  next  point  is  how  people  provided  with  thread  or 
yarn  taught  themselves  to  weave  it  into  cloth.  As  has  just 
been  said,  cloth  is  a  sort  of  matting  made  with  threads, 
but  as  these  cannot  be  held  stiff  like  rushes,  a  number  of 
them  may  be  stretched  in  a  frame  to  form  a  warp,  and 
then  the  cross-thread  or  woof  worked  in  and  out  with  the 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


fingers,  or  on  a  stick,  as  the  Mexican  girl  is  doing  in  Fig. 
70.  This  toilsome  method  still  suits  the  difficult  patterns 
of  the  tapestry-weaver.  But  time-saving  contrivances  were 
invented  very  early.  The  ancient  Egyptian  pictures  already 
show  the  alternate  threads  of  the  warp  being  lifted  by 
cross-bars,  so  as  to  allow  the  woof-thread  carried  by  a 
shuttle  to  be  sent  right  across  the  piece  of  cloth  at  one 
throw.  The  looms  of  classic  Greece  and  Rome  were 
much  the  same,  and  little  improvement  was  made  in  the 
machine  during  the  middle  ages.  Indeed  in  out-of-the- 
way  places  such  as  the  Hebrides,  the  tourist  may  still  see 


Fig.  70. — Girl  weaving.     (From  an  Aztec  picture.) 

the  old  cottage-loom  which,  except  in  being  horizontal  so 
that  the  weaver  sits  to  it  instead  of  standing,  hardly  differs 
from  the  loom  at  which  Penelope  may  be  imagined  weaving 
the  famous  shroud  that  she  undid  at  night.  Only  about  a 
century  ago  improvement  began  again,  when  the  "flying 
shuttle"  was  invented,  which  instead  of  being  thrown  by 
hand,  was  driven  swiftly  across  by  a  pair  of  levers  or  arti- 
ficial arms.  Of  late  years  this  improved  loom  has  passed 
into  the  power-loom,  the  steam-engine  now  doing  the  hard 
labour    instead    of    the    weaver's    hands    and    feet.     The 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  249 

ingenious  device  of  the  Jacquard  loom  with  its  perforated 
cards  arranging  the  threads,  has  made  it  possible  to  weave 
even  landscapes  and  portraits. 

The  primitive  tailor  ox  "cutter"  {tailleur)  had  not  only 
to  cut  his  skin  or  bark  into  shape,  but  to  join  pieces  by 
means  of  sinew  or  thread.  This  art  of  sewing  makes  its 
appearance  among  savages,  and  is  seen  in  its  rudest  form 
among  the  Fuegians  who  pierce  their  guanaco-skins  with 
a  pointed  bone,  push  the  thread  through,  and  make  a  tie  at 
each  hole.  Among  tribes  who  have  only  such  bone  awls, 
or  stiff  thorns,  to  work  with,  sewing  cannot  get  beyond  the 
shoemaker's  fashion  of  first  making  a  row  of  holes  and  then 
pushing  and  pulling  the  thread  through.  But  bone  needles 
with  eyes  are  found  in  the  reindeer-caves  of  France,  so 
that  possibly  the  seamstresses  of  the  mammoth- period  may 
already  have  known  how  to  stitch  and  embroider  their  soft 
skins.  AVhen  the  metal-period  began,  bronze  needles  came 
into  use  such  as  are  to  be  seen  in  museums,  and  in  m.odern 
times  the  fine  steel  needles  have  become  an  example  how 
finish  and  cheapness  may  be  gained  by  division  of  labour, 
one  set  of  workpeople  being  entirely  occupied  in  grinding 
the  points,  another  in  drilling  the  eyes,  and  so  on.  But  the 
sewing-needle  is  still  in  principle  that  of  the  ancient  world, 
and  hand-sewing,  after  holding  its  place  for  thousands  of 
years,  has  suddenly  had  to  compete  with  the  work  of  the 
new  sewing-machine,  which  runs  its  more  rapid  seams  in  a 
mechanically  difterent  way. 

Next,  as  to  the  shape  of  garments.  If  we  knew  of  no 
costume  but  what  we  commonly  wear  now,  we  might  think 
it  more  a  product  of  mere  fancy  than  it  really  is.  But  on 
looking  carefully  at  the  dresses  of  various  nations,  it"  is  seen 
that  most  garments  are  variations  of  a  {^.vi  principal  kinds, 
each  made  for  a  particular  purpose  in  clothing  the  body. 


250  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

The  simplest  and  no  doubt  earliest  garments  are  wraps 
wound  or  hung  on  the  body,  and  by  noticing  how  these 
are  worn  it  may  be  guessed  how  they  led  to  the  later  use 
of  garments  fitted  to  the  wearer's  shape.  To  begin  with  the 
simplest  mantles,  a  skin  or  blanket  with  a  hole  through 
the  middle  forms  a  ready-made  garment  of  the  poncho 
kind.  When  one  throws  a  rug  or  blanket  over  one's 
shoulders,  it  becomes  a  garment  which  requires  fastening 
in  front,  or  on  one  shoulder,  to  leave  the  arm  free.  This 
fastening  may  be  done  with  a  thorn  or  bone  pin,  the 
primitive  brooch,  that  is,  "skewer"  (French  broche)  ;  we 
now  use  the  word  brooch  to  mean  the  more  civilized  metal 
pin  with  a  safety-clasp,  the  \.2Xvi\.  fibula  or  "  fixer."  Now  if 
one  stands  thus  draped  in  a  blanket  or  sheet,  one  has  only 
to  raise  the  arms  to  show  how  naturally  sleeves  came  to  be 
made  by  sewing  together  under  the  arms.  Next,  putting 
the  blanket  over  the  head  and  holding  it  under  the  chin,  it 
is  seen  how  the  part  over  the  head  will  make  a  hood,  which 
can  be  thrown  back  when  not  wanted.  When  it  was  found 
convenient  to  make  the  hood  separate,  there  arose  various 
kinds  of  head-covering,  whose  baggy  shape  often  shows 
their  origin,  for  instance  the  pointed  "fool's-cap."  When 
the  mantle  thrown  over  the  shoulders  is  short,  it  forms  the 
cape  or  cope  ;  when  long,  it  becomes  the  cloak,  which  owes 
its  name  to  its  likeness  to  a  bell  (French  cloche).  For 
convenience,  many  varieties  of  the  mantle  are  cut  into 
shape,  as  for  instance  the  toga  in  which  the  ancient 
Roman  draped  himself  was  rounded  off.  But  ever  since 
the  invention  of  weaving,  certain  garments  have  been  worn 
just  as  they  came  from  the  loom,  such  as  the  Scotch  plaid, 
and  that  ancient  Eastern  wrapper  which  we  still  know  by 
its  Persian  name  of  sha^vl  {shal).  Such  woven  garments 
are  apt  to  keep  a  mark  of  their  origin  in  the  fringe,  which 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  251 

in  its  original  form  is  the  ends  of  the  warp-threads  left  on 
by  the  weaver,  and  when  these  threads  are  tied  together 
in  bundles  they  give  rise  to  tassels.  Another  great  group 
of  garments  are  tunics,  seen  in  a  simple  form  in  the  chiton 
of  ancient  Greek  female  dress,  which  has  been  compared 
to  a  linen  sack  open  at  both  ends,  and  was  held  up  by 
a  brooch  on  each  shoulder,  leaving  openings  for  the  arms. 
The  tunic,  closed  at  the  shoulders  and  generally  provided 
with  sleeves,  is  the  most  universal  of  civilized  garments, 
whether  worn  hanging  loose  like  a  shirt,  or  drawn  in  at  the 
waist  by  a  girdle  or  belt.  In  its  various  forms  it  is  seen 
as  the  tunic  of  the  Roman  legionary  and  the  "red  shirt" 
of  the  Garibaldian  volunteer,  the  coat  of  the  mediaeval 
noble,  the  smock-frock  of  the  English  peasant,  the 
blouse  of  the  French  workman,  and  lastly,  it  led  to  our 
modern  coats  and  waistcoats,  which  are  tunics  made  to 
open  in  front  and  close  with  buttons.  One  of  the  great 
steps  in  personal  cleanliness  and  therefore  in  culture  made 
by  our  forefathers,  was  the  adoption  of  a  linen  tunic  next 
the  skin,  the  "short"  garment,  or  shirt.  Again,  a  piece 
of  cloth  wrapped  round  the  body  and  held  up  by  a  girdle 
forms  the  skirt  or  kilt,  and  the  way  in  which  Eastern 
women  fasten  their  skirts  together  between  the  feet  for 
convenience  of  walking,  shows  how  trousers  were  invented. 
Many  ancient  nations  wore  trousers,  as  the  Sarmatians, 
whose  modern-looking  costume  may  be  seen  on  Trajan's 
column,  and  the  Gauls  and  Britons,  so  that  it  is  a  mistake 
to  call  the  present  Highland  costume  the  "garb  of  old 
Gaul."  The  classic  Greeks  and  Romans  looked  on  the 
bracccs  or  breeches  as  belonging  to  barbarism,  but  their 
opinion  has  not  been  accepted  by  the  civilized  world. 

These    remarks    may   lead  readers    to    look    attentively 
into  books    of  costume,    which   indeed   are  full  of  curious 


252  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

illustrations  of  the  way  in  which  things  are  not  invented 
outright  by  mere  fancy,  but  come  by  gradual  alterations  of 
what  was  already  there.  To  account  for  our  present  absurd 
"  chimney-pot "  hat,  we  must  see  how  it  came  by  successive 
changes  from  the  conical  ■  Puritan  hat  and  the  slouched 
Si-uart  hat,  and  these  again  from  earlier  forms.  The  sense 
of  the  hat-band  must  be  found  in  its  once  having  been  a 
real  cord  to  draw  in  the  mere  round  piece  of  felt  which 
was  the  primitive  hat ;  and  to  understand  why  our  hat  is 
covered  with  silk  nap,  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  is  an 
imitation  of  the  earlier  beaver-fur  hat,  which  would  stand 
rain.  Even  the  now  useless  seams  and  buttons  on  modern 
clothes  (see  page  15)  are  bits  of  past  history. 

This  chapter  may  be  concluded  with  an  account  of  boats 
and  ships.  He  who  first,  laying  hold  of  a  floating  bough, 
found  it  would  bear  him  up  in  the  water,  had  made  a  be- 
ginning in  navigation.  Naturally,  history  has  kept  no  record 
of  the  origin  of  such  an  art.  Yet  the  rudest  forms  of  floats, 
rafts,  and  boats,  may  still  be  seen  in  use  among  savages,  and 
even  the  civilized  traveller  coming  to  a  stream  or  lake  may 
be  glad  to  make  shift  with  a  log  or  a  bundle  of  bulrushes  to 
help  him  across,  and  carry  his  gun  and  clothes  over  dry. 
Comparing  these  rough-and-ready  means  with  the  contri- 
vances made  with  skill  and  care  for  permanent  use,  a  fair 
idea  may  be  had  of  the  stages  through  which  the  shipwrights' 
art  grew  up. 

The  mere  float  comes  lowest,  as  where  a  South  Sea  Island 
child  goes  into  the  water  with  an  unhusked  coco-nut  to  hold 
on  by ;  or  a  Hottentot  will  swim  his  goats  across  the  river, 
supporting  his  body  by  sprawling  on  one  end  of  a  drift-log 
of  willow,  which  he  calls  his  "wooden-horse."  Australians 
have  been  known  to  come  out  to  our  ships  sitting  astride 
logs  pointed  at  the  ends,  and  paddling  with   their  hands, 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  253 

while  native  fishermen  of  California  will  sit  on  a  bundle  of 
rushes  tied  vp  in  the  shape  of  a  sailor's  hammock.  Rude 
as  these  are,  they  at  any  rate  show  that  the  makers  have 
noticed  the  advantage  which  the  craft  with  a  sharp  bow  has 
over  the  blunt-ended  log  in  getting  through  the  water.  In 
all  quarters  of  the  globe,  men  improve  on  the  float  by 
making  it  hollow  for  buoyancy;  it  thus  becomes  a  boat. 
One  way  of  doing  this  is  to  scoop  out  a  log.  Any  one  who 
happens  to  have  been  up  country  in  America  may  have 
paddled  himself  in  such  a  "dug-out"  across  a  pond  or 
river ;  and  after  experience  of  the  care  required  to  keep  a 
cylinder  from  rolling  over  in  the  water,  he  will  know  how 
great  an  improvement  it  was  in  boat-building  when  a  keel 
was  put  on  to  steady  the  craft.  To  savages  with  their  stone 
hatchets,  the  hollowing  out  of  a  log  is  a  laborious  business 
when  the  wood  is  of  a  hard  kind,  and  they  are  apt  to  use 
fire  to  help  them,  setting  the  tree-trunk  alight  along  the 
proper  line  and  hacking  away  the  burning  wood.  Columbus 
was  struck  with  the  size  of  such  vessels  made  by  the  natives 
of  the  West  Indies,  mentioning  in  his  letters  many  canoes 
of  solid  wood,  "  multas  scaphas  solidi  ligni,"  some  so  large 
as  to  hold  seventy  to  eighty  rowers.  The  Spaniards  adopted 
their  Haitian  name  canoa,  whence  our  canoe.  Yet  this  dug- 
out, or  monoxyle  (''  one-tree  "),  to  use  its  Greek  name,  was 
well  known  in  other  barbaric  countries,  and  had  been  com- 
mon in  Europe  in  ages  before  history,  as  may  be  seen  by 
the  specimens  in  museums,  preserved  by  the  peat  or  sand 
in  which  they  were  found  imbedded.  Even  the  Latin  word 
scapha,  used  above,  carries  the  record  of  this  early  boat- 
building ;  it  is  Greek  skaphe,  which  corresponds  so  exactly 
in  meaning  to  the  term  "  dug-out,"  as  to  be  an  evident  relic 
of  the  time  when  boats  were  really  scooped  out  of  solid 
trunks  ;  related  to  these  words  are  English  skiff  Sind  ship,  so 


254  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

that  the  line  of  connexion  in  names  runs  through  from  first 
to  last.  Another  very  simple  way  of  making  a  boat  is  that 
seen  among  the  Australians,  where  a  man  will  strip  a  sheet 
of  bark  off  the  stringy-bark  tree,  tie  it  together  at  the  ends, 
and  paddle  off  in  this  improvised  bark-canoe.  If,  however, 
it  is  to  be  used  more  than  once,  he  sews  the  ends  together, 
anei  puts  in  stretchers  or  cross-pieces  of  wood  to  keep  it  in 
shape.  Thus  appears  the  bark-canoe,  not  unknown  in  Asia 
and  Africa,  and  attaining  in  North  America  its  greatest 
perfection,  with  its  framework  of  cedar  and  sheathing  of 
sheets  of  birch-bark  sewed  together  with  fibrous  cedar-roots. 
Such  canoes  are  still  in  full  use  in  districts  like  the  Hudson's 
Bay  territory,  being  well  suited  to  a  broken  navigation  where 
rapids  make  it  needful  to  carry  boat  and  cargo  overland,  or 
a  "  portage  "  has  to  be  made  from  one  river  to  another. 
The  principle  of  skin-canoes  is  much  the  same,  using  hide 
for  bark.  North  American  Indians  crossing  rivers  have  been 
known  to  turn  the  skins  of  their  tents  into  vessels  by  means 
of  a  few  twigs  to  keep  them  stretched.  Scarcely  above  this 
are  the  round  skin-covered  boats  of  boughs  of  Mesopo- 
tamia, and  the  portable  coracles  of  the  ancient  Britons  ;  on 
the  Severn  and  the  Shannon  fishermen  still  go  down  to  the 
river  carrying  on  their  backs  their  coracles,  now  made  of 
tarred  canvas  on  a  frame,  but  modelled  on  the  ancient 
type.  The  Esquimaux  kayak  has  its  framework  of  bone  or 
drift-wood  on  which  are  stretched  the  seal-skins  which 
convert  it  into  a  water-tight  life-buoy,  in  which  the  skin-clad 
paddler  can  even  turn  over  sideways  and  bring  his  boat  up 
right  on  the  other  side.  Our  modern  so-called  canoes  are 
imitations  of  this  in  wood. 

Next,  when  the  barbaric  shipwright  comes  to  improving  a 
dug-out  canoe  by  sewing  or  lacing  on  a  strip  of  thin  board 
as   a  gunwale,  or   making   his  whole  boat  by  sewing  thin 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  255 

boards  together  over  the  ribs,  instead  of  skins  or  slieets  of 
bark,  he  brings  his  vessel  a  stage  nearer  to  our  boats. 
From  Africa  across  to  the  Makiy  Archipelago,  such  sewn 
ships  used  to  be,  and  often  still  are,  the  ordinary  native 
craft.  The  South  Sea  Island  canoes,  thus  laced  together 
with  sinnet  or  coco-nut  fibre  braid  so  neatly  that  the  joints 
hardly  show,  are  marvels  of  barbaric  carpentry.  In  the 
gulf  of  Oman,  men  used  to  go  across  to  the  coco-nut 
islands  with  their  tools,  cut  down  a  few  palms,  make  the 
wood  into  planks,  sew  these  together  with  cord  made  from 
the  bark,  make  sails  of  the  leaves,  load  the  new-made  ships 
with  the  nuts,  and  set  sail. 

Before  coming  to  the  ships  of  civilized  nations,  let  us  look 
back  for  a  moment  to  the  ruder  floats.  Two  or  three  logs 
fastened  together  form  a  raft,  which  though  clumsy  to  move 
has  the  advantage  of  not  upsetting,  and  carrying  a  heavy 
load.  At  the  time  of  the  discovery  of  Peru,  the  Spaniards 
were  amazed  to  meet  with  a  native  raft  out  in  the  ocean, 
and  with  a  sail  set.  The  rafts  which  bring  goods  down 
the  Euphrates  and  Tigris  are  buoyed  with  blown  sheep- 
skins ;  at  the  end  of  the  voyage  the  raft  is  broken  up 
and  the  wood  sold,  so  that  only  the  empty  skins  have  to 
go  back  to  serve  another  time.  With  still  more  perfect 
economy,  the  rafts  down  the  Nile  are  buoyed  with  earthen  pots 
for  sale  in  the  bazar,  so  that  nothing  goes  back.  Timber- 
rafts,  like  those  on  the  Rhine,  are  well  arranged  for  merely 
floating  down  stream.  But  when  a  raft  has  to  be  driven 
through  the  water  by  oars  or  sails,  its  resistance  is  excessive, 
and  it  has  occurred  to  the  Fijians  and  other  islanders 
that  a  raft  formed  by  two  parallel  logs  united  by  cross-poles 
and  carrying  a  raised  platform,  would  go  more  easily.  Look- 
ing at  this  simple  contrivance,  it  has  been  reasonably 
thought  that  it   led  up   to  the  invention  of  the  outrigger 


256  ANTHROPOLOGY.  chap. 

canoe,  known  in  ancient  Europe,  and  now  prevailing  in  the 
Pacific  and  as  far  as  Ceylon.  One  of  the  two  logs  is  now 
represented  by  the  canoe,  the  second  remaining  as  the  out- 
rigger log,  fastened  to  the  ends  of  the  two  projecting  poles, 
so  as  to  steady  the  whole  in  rough  weather.  Or  indeed  the 
two  logs  may  both  become  canoes,  and  the  platform  be 
retained ;  thus  we  have  the  Polynesian  double-canoe, 
whose  principle  has  been  lately  turned  to  account  in  the 
double-steamboat  to  smooth  the  passage  between  Dover 
and  Calais. 

Next,  as  to  the  ways  by  which  boats  are  propelled 
through  the  water.  The  origin  of  rowing  is  plainly  shown 
by  the  Australian  straddling  his  pointed  log  and  paddling 
with  his  hands,  or  by  the  fisherman  of  the  Upper  Nile 
propelling  with  his  feet  the  bundle  of  stalks  he  sits  astride 
on.  The  primitive  wooden  paddle,  imitating  the  form  and 
doing  the  work  of  the  flat  hand  or  foot,  is  well  known  to 
savages,  who  mostly  use  the  single  paddle  with  a  blade 
or  shovel  end ;  the  double-ended  paddle,  such  as  our 
canoeists  have  borrowed  from  the  Esquimaux,  is  a  peculiar 
improved  form.  The  paddle  used  free-handed  to  dig  or 
SA^eep  at  the  water,  is  best  suited  to  the  narrow  bark- 
canoe  or  hollowed  trunk,  but  for  larger  craft  it  is  a  rude 
contrivance  as  compared  with  the  civilized  oar,  which  is  a 
lever  pulled  against  a  fulcrum  so  as  to  use  more  of  the 
rower's  force,  and  in  a  steadier  pull.  The  difference  between 
barbaric  and  civilized  knowledge  of  mechanical  principles, 
is  well  seen  by  comparing  a  large  South  Sea  Island  canoe 
with  twenty  paddlers  shovelling  the  water,  to  one  of  our 
eight-oared  launches.  Of  sails,  perhaps  the  simplest  idea 
is  to  be  seen  in  Catlin's  sketch  of  North  American  Indians 
standing  up  each  in  his  canoe,  holding  up  his  blanket 
with  outstretched  arms  with  its  lower  end   tied  to  his  leg^ 


X.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  257 

and  so  going  before  the  wind.  The  rudest  regular  sail 
used  anywhere  is  a  mat  or  cloth  held  up  by  two  sticks  as 
stays  at  the  upper  corners  and  made  fast  below,  or  sup- 
ported by  an  upright  pole  and  cross-piece,  the  primitive 
mast  and  yard.  It  is  so  common  for  the  lower  tribes  of 
men  never  to  sail  their  boats,  that  it  is  difficult  to  imagine 
that  their  ancestors  ever  knew  how.  Surely  they  would 
have  kept  it  up,  for  the  art  of  saving  so  much  labour  with 
so  little  pains  would  not  easily  have  fallen  out  of  mind. 
It  seems  more  likely  that  the  invention  of  the  sailing  vessel 
belongs  to  a  period  when  civilization  was  far  advanced. 
Yet  this  period  was  very  ancient. 

Up  to  this  point,  in  making  out  how  the  simpler  kinds  of 
boats  came  into  existence,  history  gives  no  help.  Not  only 
does  their  origin  mostly  lie  beyond  record,  but  by  the  time 
we  come  fairly  into  history  we  find  the  ancient  nations 
knowing  how  to  build  vessels  of  more  advanced  order, 
framed  with  keel  and  ribs,  and  sheathed  with  nailed 
planks,  in  fact  the  direct  predecessors  of  our  own  ships. 
Egypt,  or  somewhere  else  in  that  Old  World  region  of 
ancient  culture,  may  have  been  the  original  centre  whence 
the  higher  shipwrights'  craft  spread  over  the  world.  It  is 
instructive  to  study  the  ancient  Egyptian  vessel  (Fig.  71) 
depicted  on  the  wall  of  a  Theban  tomb,  and  to  see  how 
far  it  already  has  in  a  rudimentary  state  the  parts  which 
we  recognise  as  belonging  to  the  fully-developed  ship.  As 
was  common,  it  was  a  combination  of  rowing-galley  and 
saiUng-ship.  The  rowers  sit  on  cross  benches,  pulling  at 
the  oars  which  pass  through  loops,  while  at  the  stern  is 
worked  the  great  steering-oar  which  is  the  ancestor  of 
our  rudder  (this  used  to  be  merely  an  oar,  which  its 
name  originally  meant,  like  ruder  in  German).  There 
is  a  mast  held  up  by  stays  and  carrying  yards,  with 
IS 


2;8 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap 


ropes  rigged  to  hoist  them  and  to  furl  the  sail.  The 
forecastle  and  poop  are  already  represented  by  raised  struc- 
tures on  the  deck.  In  the  Egyptian  pictures  of  war-ships 
it  is  seen  how  these  served  as  stations  for  the  archers, 
while  the  fighting-men  were  also  protected  behind  a  bul- 
wark, and  there  is  even  the  "crow's  nest"  on  the  top  of 
the  mast  serving  as  a  place  for  slingers  to  hurl  stones  from 
at  the  enemy,  from  which  comes  our  "mast-head."  Com- 
paring with  the  Egyptian  vessels  the  ancient  galleys  and 
ships  of  the  Mediterranean,    whether   Phoenician,    Greek, 


Fig.  71. — Ancient  Nile-boat,  from  wall-painting,  Thebes. 

or  Roman,  it  is  impossible  to  think  these  can  have 
come  into  existence  by  separate  lines  of  invention  ;  the 
family  likeness  among  them  is  too  strong.  Even  farther  off, 
the  likeness  of  the  craft  still  used  in  the  Ganges  to  the  ancient 
Nile-boats  is  surprising,  and  the  eye  of  Osiris  painted  on 
the  Egyptian  funeral  bark  that  carried  the  dead  across  the 
lake  to  the  western  burial-place,  may  perhaps  have  first 
suggested  the  painting  of  eyes  as  ornaments  on  the  bows  of 
boats,  from  the  barks  in  Valetta  harbour  in  the  west  to  the 
junks   of  Canton  in  the  east.     In  following  the  course  of 


X-l  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  259 

development  from  the  ancient  to  the  modern  ship,  'we 
notice  that  from  time  to  time  new  appliances  come  in,  as 
metals  heathing  to  protect  the  planks  from  the  boring  teredo, 
the  iron  duked  anchor  instead  of  a  great  stone,  the  capstan 
for  hauling,  &:c.  More  masts  and  spars  now  served  to  carry 
more  sails,  and  tier  above  tier  of  rowers  impelled  the  classic 
bireme  and  trireme.  The  war-galley  lasted  on  into  our 
own  time  in  the  Venetian  navy,  kept  in  use  in  spite  of 
its  bad  sea-going  quality,  for  its  power  of  dashing  upon 
sailing-vessels  helpless  in  a  calm.  The  galley-slaves  who 
laboured  at  the  huge  oars  were  captives  or  criminals,  and 
though  the  French  galleys  no  longer  remain  for  penal 
servitude,  the  term  galerien  or  galley-slave  still  means  a 
convict.  The  vast  improvement  of  European  sailing-vessels 
in  the  middle  ages  is  in  great  measure  due  to  an  invention 
learnt  from  the  far  east — the  mariner's  compass.  Ships,  now 
able  to  steer  their  courses  on  long  voyages  out  of  sight  of 
land,  were  improved  in  build  and  rigging,  while  the  men- 
of-war  with  several  decks  armed  with  tiers  of  cannon 
became  floating  castles.  Lastly,  during  the  present  century, 
steam-power  has  been  applied  to  propel  the  ship  from 
within,  the  paddle-wheel  or  screw  in  fact  taking  the  place 
of  the  old  banks  of  oars,  and  the  changeable  wind-power 
being  now  only  turned  to  account  as  an  occasional  aid  and 
means  of  saving  fuel.  It  is  needless  to  describe  the  changes 
which  modern  armour-plating  and  huge  guns  have  made 
in  the  construction  of  ships  of  war,  but  even  these  still 
show  plainly  enough  how  they  were  formed  by  successive  ' 
alterations  from  the  primitive  canoe. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

ARTS    OF    LIFE — (cOHchldcd). 

Fire,  260 — Cookery,  264 — Bread,  &c.,  266 — Liquors,  268 — Fuel,  270 
— Lighting,  272 — Vessels,  274 — Pottery,  274 — Glass,  276 — Metals, 
277 — Bronze  and  Iron  Ages,  278 — Barter,  281 — Money,  282 — 
Commerce,  285. 

The  subject  next  to  be  considered  is  Fire  and  its  uses. 
Man  understands  fire  and  deals  with  it  in  ways  quite  beyond 
the  intelHgence  of  the  lower  animals.  There  is  an  old  story 
how,  in  the  forests  of  equatorial  Africa,  when  travellers  had 
gone  away  in  the  morning  and  left  their  fires  burning,  the 
huge  manlike  apes  called  pongos  (probably  our  gorillas) 
would  come  and  sit  round  the  burning  logs  till  they  went 
out,  not  having  the  sagacity  to  lay  more  wood  on.  This 
story  is  often  repeated  to  contrast  human  intelligence  with 
the  dulness  of  even  the  highest  apes.  Of  course  there  had 
been  forest-fires  in  ages  before  man,  as  when  the  trees  had 
been  set  in  flames  by  lightning  or  by  a  lava  stream.  But 
of  all  creatures  man  alone  has  known  how  to  manage  fire, 
to  carry  it  from  place  to  place  with  burning  brands,  and 
when  it  went  out  to  produce  it  afresh.  No  savage  tribe 
Seems  really  to  have  been  found  so  low  as  to  be  without 
fire.      In   the  limestone  caverns,  among  the  relics  of  the 


CH.  XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  261 

mammoth  period,  morsels  of  charcoal  and  burnt  bones  are 
found  imbedded,  which  show  that  even  in  that  remote 
antiquity  the  rude  cave-men  made  fires  to  cook  their  food 
and  warm  themselves  by. 

As  to  the  art  of  producing  fire,  the  savage  way  was  mostly 
by  the  friction  of  two  pieces  of  wood,  and  to  this  day 
travellers  may  now  and  then  see  the  simple  apparatus  at 
work.  The  hand  fire-drill  consists  of  a  stick  like  an  arrow- 
shaft  cut  to  a  blunt  point,  which  is  twirled  like  a  chocolate- 
muUer  between  the  hands  (shifted  up  when  they  get  too 
far  down)  with  such  speed  and  pressure  as  to  bore  a 
hole  into  an  under-piece  of  wood,  till  the  charred  dust 
made  by  the  boring  takes  fire.  Fig.  72  shows  a  Bushman 
thus  drilling  fire  while  his  companion  attends  to  the  tinder. 
The  Polynesian  way  is  different,  pushing  the  pointed  stick 
along  a  groove  of  its  own  making  in  the  under-piece  of 
wood.  Either  method  will  make  fire  in  a  few  minutes, 
but  knack  and  proper  choice  of  wood  are  needed,  and 
one  of  us  will  hardly  succeed.  For  easier  working,  some 
nations  have  long  had  a  mechanical  improvement  on  the 
simple  savage  fire-drill,  by  driving  it  with  a  thong  wound 
a  couple  of  turns  round  the  stick,  and  pulled  to  and 
fro;  also,  working  it  with  a  bow  like  the  common  bow- 
drill  of  our  tool-shops  is  not  unknown.  In  either  case  a 
top-piece  is  required  to  keep  the  drill  down  (not  too  hard) 
on  its  bearing. 

Among  civilized  nations,  the  old  fire-drill  had  already  in 
ancient  times  been  superseded  in  common  use  by  better 
contrivances,  especially  the  flint  and  steel.  But  although 
discarded  from  practical  life,  it  has  been  kept  up  for 
ceremonial  purposes.  As  has  been  already  mentioned, 
(p.  16)  the  Brahmans  may  be  still  seen  "  churning  *'  with 
a  fire-drill  driven  by  a  hair- cord  the    pure  divine  fire  for 


262 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


their  sacrifices,  thus  rehgiously  keeping  to  the  old-fashioned 
instrument  used  in  daily  life  by  the  early  Aryans.  The 
ancient  Romans  had  such  a  survival  of  their  past  state  of 
arts  in  the  law  that  if  the  vestal  virguis  let  out  the  sacred 
fire,  it  was  to  be  made  afresh  by  drilling  into  a  wooden 
board.  The  old  art  has  even  lasted  on  in  Europe  to  our 
own  day  as  the  orthodox  means  of  kindling  the  ''need-fire," 
with  which,  when  there  was  a  nuirrain,  the  peasants  in 
many  parts  used  to  light  bonfires  to  drive  the  horses  and 
cattle  through,  to  save  them  from  the  pestilence.  This 
rite,    inherited    from   the   religion    of  prse-Christian   times. 


Fig.  72, — Bushman  drilling  fire  (after  Chapman). 


requires  new  wild-fire  made  by  friction,  not  the  tame  fire 
of  the  hearth.  The  last  need-fire  on  record  in  Great 
Britain  is  perhaps  one  that  was  made  in  Perth  in  1826,  but 
they  may  still  be  seen  in  Sweden  and  elsewhere  when  there 
is  cholera  or  other  pestilence  about.  In  the  last  century 
there  was  a  law  passed  forbidding  the  superstitious  friction- 
fire  m  Tonkoping,  the  very  district  now  famous  for  its 
cheap  taudstickor  or  tinder-sticks,  that  is,  lucifer-matches. 
So  curiously  do  the  extremes  of  civilization  come  together 
in  the  world. 

The  fire-drill  is  a  means  of  converting  mechanical  force 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  263 

into  heat  till  the  burning-point  of  wood  is  reached.  But  all 
that  is  really  wanted  is  a  glowing  hot  particle  or  spark,  and 
this  can  be  far  more  easily  got  in  other  ways.  Breaking  a 
nodule  of  iron  pyrites  picked  up  on  the  sea-shore,  and  with 
a  bit  of  flint  striking  sparks  from  it  on  tinder,  is  a  way  of 
fire-making  quite  superior  to  the  use  of  the  wooden  drill. 
It  was  known  to  some  modern  savages,  even  the  miserable 
natives  of  Tierra  del  Fuego  ;  to  the  prae  historic  men  of 
Europe,  as  appears  from  the  bits  of  pyrites  found  in  their 
caves ;  and  of  course  to  the  old  civilized  world,  as  witness 
the  Greek  name  of  the  mineral,  purites  ox  "fiery."  Sub- 
stitute for  this  a  piece  of  iron,  and  we  have  the  flint-and- 
steel,  the  ordinary  apparatus  of  nations  from  their  entry 
into  the  iron  age  till  modern  times.  Yet  even  this  has  now 
been  so  discarded  that  the  old-fashioned  kitchen  tinder-box 
with  its  flint  and  U-shaped  steel,  and  damper  for  preparing 
the  tinder  from  scraps  of  burnt  linen  to  light  the  brimstone- 
match  with,  has  become  a  curiosity  worth  securing  when 
found  by  chance  in  some  farmhouse.  Mention  need  hardly 
be  made  here  of  the  burning  lens  and  the  concave  mirror 
known  in  ancient  Greece,  nor  of  the  wooden  condensing 
syringe  (much  like  that  described  in  our  books  on  physics) 
known  in  the  Chinese  region  ;  these  are  rather  curious  than 
practically  important.  Quite  otherwise  with  the  invention 
of  the  lucifer-match,  dating  from  about  1840.  Its  action 
depends  on  phosphorus  igniting  by  being  rubbed,  the  head 
of  an  ordinary  lucifer  being  of  an  inflammable  composition, 
containing  chlorate  or  nitrate  of  potash,  which  is  fired  by 
particles  of  phosphorus  mixed  in  with  it ;  for  the  safety- 
match,  these  particles  of  phosphorus  are  put,  not  in  the 
match-head,  but  on  the  rubber  instead. 

In  the  low  levels  of  civilization  the  hut  is  often  so  small 
that  the  fire  has  to  be  made  outside.     But  when  it  becomes 


264  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

spacious  enough,  the  fire  of  logs  burns  on  the  hard-trodden 
earth  in  the  middle  of  the  hut,  the  smoke  finding  its 
way  out  as  it  can  by  door  and  cracks.  Those  who  have 
chanced  to  spend  a  night  lying  on  the  ground  with  their 
feet  to  the  fire  in  such  a  dwelling,  know  both  what  place  the 
fire  has  in  barbaric  comfort,  and  how  that  comfort  was 
increased  when  builders  took  the  trouble  to  make  a  smoke- 
hole  in  the  roof,  and  afterwards  came  to  a  real  chimney. 
The  history  of  artificial  warming  from  this  point  lies  so 
plainly  before  us  as  not  to  need  a  long  description.  From 
the  fire  of  a  few  sticks  on  the  cottage  hearth,  we  come  to 
the  wide  fire-places  in  the  halls  of  country  houses,  with  their 
fire-dogs,  after  the  fashion  of  the  middle  ages.  Then  come 
the  coal-fires  in  open  grates,  the  closed  stoves,  and  the 
arrangements  for  warming  the  house  with  currents  of  hot 
air,  or  circulating  pipes  of  hot  water. 

From  house-warming  we  come  to  cookery.  The  heat 
applied  in  cooking  food,  bursting  the  cells  and  softening  the 
tissues  so  as  to  make  it  easier  to  chew,  is  an  important  aid 
to  digestion,  saving  energy  which  would  be  wasted  on  as- 
similating raw  flesh  or  vegetables.  It  would  not  indeed  be 
impossible  for  man  to  live  on  uncooked  food,  and  perhaps 
the  nearest  approach  to  this  is  found  on  some  coral  islands 
of  the  Pacific,  where  raw  fish  and  coco-nuts  form  a  great 
part  of  the  native  diet.  Low  tribes,  especially  half-starved 
wanderers  of  the  deserts,  such  as  the  Australians,  eat 
insects,  grubs,  shellfish,  and  small  reptiles,  raw  as  they  find 
them ;  and  Brazilian  forest-men  have  been  seen  to  imitate 
the  ant-bear  by  poking  a  stick  into  an  ant-hill,  and  letting 
the  ants  run  up  it  into  their  mouths.  These  practices  shock 
Europeans,  who  themselves  however  have  no  scruples  as 
to  oysters  and  cheese-mites,  to  which  they  happen  to  be 
accustomed.     But  these  rude  tribes  know  how  to  cook,  as 


xi.J  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  265 

indeed  all  mankind  do,  the  familiar  definition  of  man  as 
the  "  cooking  animal  "  having  no  proved  exception,  ancient 
or  modern.  Civilized  nations  have  come  so  thoroughly  to 
this  way  of  assisting  nature,  that  they  cook  almost  every- 
thing they  eat,  only  keeping  up  primitive  habits  in  eating 
nuts,  berries,  and  other  fruit  raw  as  more  pleasing  to  the 
taste.  It  has  long  been  looked  on  as  a  sign  of  low  culture 
to  eat  raw  meat,  like  the  Eurytanes  of  the  interior  of  Greece 
whom  Thukydides  mentions  as  "  most  ignorant  in  their 
speech,  and  said  to  be  raw-eaters  {dmophagoi)^  Even  the 
native  tribes  of  New  England  were  struck  with  this  habit 
among  the  roving  race  of  the  far  north,  whom  they  called 
accordingly  Eskimantsic  or  "  raw-flesh-eaters,"  a  name  they 
still  bear  m  its  French  form  Esguimanx. 

The  roughest  ways  of  cooking  are  to  be  seen  among 
savages,  who  broil  their  meat  on  the  burning  logs,  or  roast 
it  stuck  on  the  primitive  spit,  a  pointed  stake  planted 
sloping  over  the  fire,  or  bury  it  in  the  hot  embers  as  boys 
do  chestnuts  or  potatoes.  From  this  latter  mode  comes 
the  invention  of  the  oven,  which  in  its  simplest  form  may 
be  a  hollow  tree  set  on  fire  and  smouldering  inside,  or  a 
pit  dug  in  the  ground  and  heated  by  a  wood-fire,  often 
with  red-hot  stones  put  in  to  help  the  baking.  Brazilian 
tribes  set  up  four  posts  with  a  grating  of  branches  across, 
on  which  they  laid  their  game  and  fish  with  a  slow  fire 
underneath.  Meat  prepared  on  such  a  houcan  will  keep 
a  long  while  ;  the  pirates  of  the  West  Indies  used  thus  to 
prepare  their  stores  of  meat,  whence  comes  the  word 
buca7ieer.  1  o  the  buffalo-hunting  tribes  of  North  America 
belongs  the  invention  oi  pemjiiican,  meat  dried  and  pounded 
for  keeping,  while  in  many  parts  of  the  world  people 
know  how  to  dry  sheets  or  strips  of  meat  in  the  hot  sun ; 
this  is  called  jerked  meat,  and  will  keep.     The  use  of  hot 


266  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

stones  in  baking  has  just  been  mentioned.  From  this  tlie 
important  art  of  boiUng  food  may  have  been  derived.  In 
many  parts  of  the  world,  among  tribes  who  do  not  know 
how  to  make  an  earthen  pot,  there  is  found  the  curious 
art  of  stone- boihng,  which  is  a  sort  of  wet  baking.  The 
Assinaboins  of  North  America  have  their  name,  which 
means  "stone-boilers,''  from  their  old  practice  of  digging  a 
hole  in  the  ground,  lining  it  with  a  piece  of  the  slaughtered 
animal's  hide,  and  then  putting  in  the  meat  with  water,  and 
hot  stones  to  boil  it.  Tribes  of  the  far  West  actually  managed 
by  means  of  red-hot  stones  to  boil  salmon  and  acorn- 
])orridge  in  their  baskets  made  of  close-plaited  roots  of  the 
spruce  fir.  The  process  of  stone-boiling  has  lasted  on  even  in 
Europe  where  found  convenient  for  heating  water  in  wooden 
tubs.  Linnaeus  on  his  northern  tour  found  the  Both- 
land  people  brewing  beer  in  this  way,  and  to  this  day 
the  "rude  Carinthian  boor"  drinks  such  "stone-beer,"  as  it 
is  called.  As  soon  as  the  cooks  anywhere  are  provided 
with  earthen  pots  or  metal  kettles,  boiling  over  the  fire 
becomes  easy.  Yet  it  is  curious  to  notice  the  absence 
of  boiled  meats  from  the  feasts  of  the  Homeric  heroes, 
where  there  is  so  much  about  the  joints  stuck  on  spits  to 
roast,  and  the  vengeful  Odysseus  rolling  to  and  fro  on  his 
bed  is  compared  to  an  eager  roaster  turning  a  stuffed 
paunch  before  the  blazing  fire.  Among  the  old  Northmen 
it  was  otherwise,  for  it  is  told  in  the  Edda  how  the 
warriors  feast  every  night  in  Walhalla  on  the  sodden 
flesh  of  the  boar  Scehrimnir,  who  is  daily  boiled  in  the  huge 
kettle,  and  comes  to  life  again  ready  for  the  morrow's  hunt. 
The  simplest  ways  of  making  bread,  such  as  seem  to 
have  come  in  with  the  earliest  cultivation  of  grain,  answer 
so  well  for  some  purposes  that  they  may  still  be  seen 
almost  unchanged.     Thus  in  a  north  country  cottage  the 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  267 

housewife  moistens  the  oatmeal  and  kneads  it  into  dough, 
which  spread  out  thin  is  baked  into  oatcakes  on  the  hot 
iron  girdle  (it  used  to  be  a  hot  stone)  ;  and  the  damper  of 
the  AustraHan  colonist  is  as  simply  made  with  flour  and 
water  in  thick  cakes,  baked  in  the  embers.  These  take  us 
back  near  the  primitive  stages  of  an  art  which  almost  more 
than  any  other  has  civilized  mankind.  Such  unleavened 
bread  being  first  in  use,  the  invention  of  leavened  bread 
would  follow  as  a  matter  of  course,  by  the  sour  dough  on 
the  uncleaned  vessel  fermenting  into  leaven  (French  levaiii, 
lightening),  which  starts  fermentation  through  the  fresh 
dough,  disengagmg  bubbles  of  carbonic  acid  within  it 
which  expand  it  into  a  spongy  mass.  In  later  times  the 
yeast  from  brewing  was  found  to  be  a  better  means  than 
leaven  ;  and  there  are  modern  processes  of  introducing  the 
gas  by  means  of  baking-powder  (such  as  sal-aeratus  or 
aerated  salt,  bicarbonate  of  soda),  or  the  bread  may  be 
aerated  by  mixing  the  carbonic  acid  gas  mechanically. 
The  other  great  means  of  preparing  farinaceous  or  starchy 
food  is  by  boiling,  which  lets  the  starch  out  to  mix  with 
the  water  by  bursting  the  tiny  granules  in  which  it  is 
enclosed.  Rice  boiled  whole  furnishes  about  half  the  food 
of  mankind,  and  among  other  staple  articles  of  vegetable 
food  are  the  various  kinds  of  pap  or  porridge  made 
with  wheat,  barley,  oats,  maize,  sago,  cassava,  &c.  Look- 
ing over  a  modern  cookery  book,  it  is  seen  what  an 
endless  list  of  dishes  and  sauces  have  been  contrived  by 
clever  cooks,  to  please  the  palate  and  make  one  wish  for 
more.  As  to  progress  in  cookery  in  this  way,  no  doubt  the 
moderns  have  left  the  ancients  behind.  But,  after  all,  the 
main  purpose  of  cooking  food  is  to  bring  it  into  a  proper 
condition  for  keeping  up  and  working  the  human  machine, 
body  and  mind.     Examining  it  from  this  point  of  view,  it 


268  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

is  curious  to  notice  what  an  old-workl  "business  it  is.  Its 
main  processes  of  roasting,  baking,  and  boiling,  belong  to 
the  barbaric  stage  of  culture,  and  had  their  origin  in  ages 
before  history. 

The  liquors  drunk  by  man  may  next  be  noticed.  Savage 
tribes  such  as  the  Australians  were  water-drinkers  when 
discovered  by  the  Europeans,  and  even  the  Hottentots  and 
North  American  Indians  knew  no  fermented  drinks.  It  is 
difficult  to  suppose  that  an  indulgence  so  tempting  would 
ever  be  forgotten,  if  once  known ;  so  that  possibly  the 
ancestors  of  these  peoples  may  have  from  the  first  been 
ignorant  of  the  art  of  fermenting  liquor.  But  in  most 
countries,  especially  where  grain  and  fruit  were  cultivated, 
one  would  think  that  the  process  must  sooner  or  later 
discover  itself,  by  the  accident  of  some  suitable  juice  or 
mash  being  left  to  stand.  In  Mexico  the  milky  juice  of 
the  aloe  is  fermented  into  pulque ;  in  Asia  and  Africa 
palms  are  tapped  for  palm-wine  or  toddy ;  cider  from 
apple-juice,  and  mead  from  honey  and  water,  are  well 
known  ;  the  Tatars  ferment  their  mares'  milk  into  kumiss. 
Especially  liquors  of  the  beer  kind  prevail  widely ;  the  first 
mentioned  in  history  is  the  beer  brewed  from  barley  by  the 
ancient  Egyptians,  whence  may  perhaps  be  traced  the 
ancient  ale  or  beer  of  Europe  ;  allied  to  it  are  the  kvass 
or  rye-beer  of  Russia,  the  pombe  or  millet-beer  of  Africa, 
the  so-called  rice-wine  of  the  Chinese,  the  chicha  made 
Avith  maize  or  cassava  by  the  natives  of  America.  Wine 
seems  not  less  ancient,  and  the  Egyptian  paintings  show 
the  vineyards,  the  wine-presses,  the  wine-jars ;  indeed, 
wine-making  is  still  much  what  it  was  in  those  early  ages 
of  history.  In  ancient  times  it  is  curious  to  notice 
the  frank  undoubting  delight  of  men  in  intoxicating 
drink,  as  a  divinely  given  means    of  drowning  care    and 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE,  269 

stimulating  dulness  into  wild  joy.  They  drank  it  solemnly 
in  their  religious  feasts  and  offered  it  to  their  gods.  The 
ancient  bards  of  the  Vedic  hymns  thought  no  ill  in  singing 
of  Indra  the  Heaven-god,  reeling  drunk  with  the  libations 
of  the  sacred  soma  poured  out  by  his  worshippers,  and  in 
later  ages  the  Greeks  chanted  in  bacchanal  processions  the 
praises  of  the  beneficent  Dionysos,  who  made  all  nations 
happy  with  the  care-dispelling  juice  of  the  grape.  But  in 
early  times  also  there  comes  into  view  an  opposite  doctrine. 
The  guardians  of  religion,  sensible  of  the  evil  of  drunken- 
ness, begin  to  proclaim  not  only  excess  as  hateful,  but  the 
very  tasting  of  strong  drink  a  sin.  The  Brahmans,  although 
the  libation  of  the  soma  remains  by  old  tradition  among 
their  sacred  rites,  yet  account  the  drinking  of  spirituous 
liquors  one  of  the  five  great  sins ;  while  in  the  old  rival 
religion  of  Buddha,  one  of  the  ten  precepts  or  command- 
ments which  the  novice  promises  to  obey,  is  that  forbidding 
the  use  of  intoxicating  liquor.  Though  the  religion  of 
Mohammed  arose  in  great  measure  out  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity,  he  cast  off  their  ancient  honour  for  wine  and 
its  use  in  sacred  rites,  forbidding  it  as  an  abomination.  It 
was  not  till  the  middle  ages  that  distilled  spirit,  though 
more  ancient  in  the  East,  came  into  use  among  the  western 
nations.  It  was  generally  accepted  as  beneficial,  as  is  well 
seen  in  the  name  of  "water  of  life,"  Latin  aquavitce,  French 
eau- de-vie,  Irish  usquebaugh  (for  shortness  7u/iisky).  Alco- 
holic spirit  is  now  produced  in  immense  quantities  from  the 
refuse  of  wine-making,  brewing,  sugar-refining,  Sac.  Its 
employment  as  a  habitual  stimulant  is  among  the  greatest 
evils  of  the  modern  world,  bringing  about  in  the  low  levels 
of  the  population  a  state  of  degradation  hardly  matched  in 
the  worst  ages  of  history.  On  the  other  hand,  modern 
civilized  life  has  gained  in  comfort  by  taking  to  the  use  of 


270  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

warm  slightly  stimulant  drinks.  Tea,  at  first  valued  by  the 
Buddhist  monks  in  Central  Asia  as  a  drug  to  keep  the 
ascetic  awake  for  his  nightly  religious  duties,  seems  to  have 
been  introduced  as  a  beverage  in  China  at  about  the 
Christian  era,  and  has  spread  fi-om  thence  all  over  the 
world.  Coffee  is  at  home  in  Arabia,  and  the  world  owes 
its  general  use  to  the  Moslems.  Chocolate  was  brought  by 
the  Spaniards  from  old  Mexico,  where  it  was  a  favourite 
drink.  With  these,  mention  has  to  be  made  of  tobacco, 
also  an  importation  from  America,  where  at  the  time  of 
the  discovery  it  was  smoked  by  natives  of  both  the  north 
and  south  continent. 

In  here  describing  fires  and  fire-places  (p.  264),  wood 
has  been  taken  as  the  primitive  fuel.  Indeed,  the  fire  of 
fallen  boughs  made  at  a  picnic  in  the  woods  may  take  our 
minds  fairly  back  to  prte-historic  life.  When  in  the  savage 
hut  the  logs  are  piled  on  the  earthen  floor,  this  simple 
hearth  already  becomes  the  gathering-place  of  the  family 
and  the  type  of  home.  But  in  treeless  districts  the  want  of 
fuel  is  one  of  the  ditficulties  of  life,  as  where  on  the  desert 
plains  the  buffalo-hnnter  has  to  pick  up  for  the  evening  fire 
the  droppings  which  he  calls  "  bufflilo-chips  "  or  "  bois  de 
vache."  Even  in  woodland  countries,  as  soon  as  people 
collect  in  villages,  the  fire-wood  near  by  is  apt  to  run  short. 
When  some  American  Indians  were  asked  what  reason  they 
supposed  had  brought  the  white  men  to  their  country,  they 
answered  quite  simply  that  no  doubt  we  had  burnt  up  all 
our  wood  at  home,  and  had  to  move.  The  guess  was  so 
far  good,  that  something  of  the  kind  must  really  have 
happened  had  we  depended  on  the  fuel  from  our  forests 
and  peat  bogs,  for  the  supply  in  England  was  giving  out. 
Thus  what  was  in  old  times  the  forest-land  of  Kent  and 
Sussex,  and  has  still  kept  its  name  of  the  Weald  {i.e.  wood), 


XI]  ARTS  OF  LIFE-.  271 

is  not  now  well-timbered,  but  this  is  because  in  Queen 
Elizabeth's  time  it  had  been  stripped  to  make  charcoal  for 
the  iron  furnaces.  Indeed,  there  then  seemed  danger  that 
as  population  increased  and  manufactures  throve,  England 
might  become  like  North  China  now,  where  in  the  cold 
weather  people  huddle  at  home  wrapped  in  furs,  fuel  being 
too  scarce  except  for  the  cooking-stove  But  instead  of 
this  coming  to  pass,  there  took  place  an  industrial  change 
in  England,  which  multiplied  the  population  and  brought 
on  our  present  prosperity.  This  was  the  use  of  coal,  on 
which  our  modern  manufacturing  system  depends.  Even 
for  household  purposes  the  coal-cellar  has  almost  superseded 
the  wood  stack,  and  the  blazing  yule-log  has  become  a 
picturesque  relic  ■  of  the  past.  The  very  word  coal,  which 
in  the  English  Bible  keeps  its  original  sense  of  burning 
wood,  has  since  been  usurped  by  the  minerak  It  must  not, 
however,  be  supposed  that  the  use  of  coal  was  only  dis- 
covered in  modern  times.  The  Chhiese  have  mined  it 
from  time  immemorial.  In  the  thirteenth  century,  the 
famous  Venetian  traveller,  Marco  Polo,  related  that  in 
Cathay  there  is  a  kind  of  black  stones,  which  are  dug  out 
of  veins  in  the  mountains,  and  burn  like  faggots ;  and  I 
can  tell  you  (he  says)  that  if  you  put  them  on  the  fire  in 
the  evening  so  that  they  catch  Avell,  they  will  burn  all  niglit 
and  even  be  alight  in  the  morning.  That  this  was  told  and 
received  as  a  wonder  in  Europe,  shows  how  unfamiliar  the 
use  of  coal  then  was.  Though  Uthanthrax  or  "  stone-coal " 
was  not  unknown  to  the  ancients,  its  full  importance  to 
modern  life  only  came  gradually  into  view.  Having  first 
been  brought  in  for  economy  to  meet  the  scarcity  of  wood, 
it  afterwards  became,  when  applied  to  the  steam-engine,  an 
almost  boundless  source  of  power  for  all  mechanical 
work.     A  steam-engine,   for  every  few    shovelfuls   of  coal 


272  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

its  furnace  is  fed  with,  will  do  the  day's  work  of  a 
horse.  Thus  the  yearly  output  of  millions  of  tons  of  steam- 
coal  in  Great  Britain  alone,  furnishes  a  supply  of  force  in 
comparison  with  which  what  was  formerly  available  from 
windmills  and  watermills  and  the  labour  of  men  and  beasts 
was  quite  small,  while  the  workman's  task  becomes  more 
and  more  that  of  directing  this  brute  force  to  grind  and 
hammer,  to  spin  and  weave,  to  carry  across  land  and  sea. 
It  is  like  the  difference  between  driving  the  waggon  and 
carrying  the  sacks  of  corn  to  market  on  one's  own  back.  It 
is  an  interesting  problem  in  political  economy  to  reckon  the 
means  of  subsistence  in  our  country  during  the  agricultural 
and  pastoral  period,  and  to  compare  them  with  the  re- 
sources we  now  gain  from  coal,  in  doing  home-work  and 
manufacturing  goods  to  exchange  for  foreign  produce. 
Perhaps  the  best  means  of  realizing  what  coal  is  to  us,  will 
be  to  consider,  that  of  three  Englishmen  now,  one  at  least 
may  be  reckoned  to  live  by  coal,  inasmuch  as  without  it 
the  population  would  have  been  so  much  less. 

The  Australian  savage  would  catch  up  a  blazing  brand 
from  the  camp-fire,  to  light  him  into  the  dark  forest  and 
scare  away  the  demons.  Thus  there  is  as  yet  no  difference 
between  his  primitive  means  of  artificial  heat  and  light. 
The  two  begin  to  separate  when  resinous  pine-splints  or  the 
like  are  set  aside  to  serve  as  natural  flambeaux,  and  from 
this  the  next  step  is  to  make  artificial  flambeaux,  of  which 
the  commonest  is  the  twist  or  torch  (from  Latin  torqiiere)  of 
oakum  dipped  in  pitch  or  wax.  Till  this  century  we  used, 
torches  much  as  the  ancient  Romans  did,  but  they  are  now 
seldom  to  be  seen,  and  by  their  disuse  the  picturesque  side 
of  life  loses  many  striking  effects  of  torchlight  glare  and 
shadow  on  banquet  and  procession — the  delight  of  painters 
and  poets.     Not  half  the  passers-by  in  old-fashioned  streets 


XL]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  273 

now  know  that  the  extinguishers  on  the  iron  raihngs  were  to 
put  out  the  hnks  or  torches  carried  to  hght  the  company 
to  their  coaches.  The  candle  looks  as  though  it  might 
have  been  invented  from  the  torch.  The  rushlight,  made 
of  the  pith  of  the  rush  dipped  in  melted  fat,  was  in  com- 
mon use  in  Pliny's  lime,  as  was  also  the  wax  or  tallow 
candle  with  its  yarn  wick.  The  old  classic  lamp  was  a 
flattish  oval  vessel  with  a  nozzle  {i.e.,  nostril)  at  one  end 
for  the  wick  to  come  out  at.  Simple  as  this  construction 
is,  it  has  had  a  long  unchanged  use.  Museums  have  few 
Greek  and  Roman  objects  more  plentiful  than  such  earthen- 
ware lamps,  nor  more  exquisite  specimens  of  metal-work 
than  the  bronze  ones  ;  and  to  this  day  the  traveller  off  the 
main  road  in  Spain  or  Italy  is  lighted  to  his  bedroom  with 
a  brass  stand-lamp  much  after  the  manner  of  the  ancients, 
with  its  pick-wick  hanging  to  it  by  a  chain.  The  lamp  only 
came  into  its  improved  modern  make  about  a  century  ago, 
when  Argand  let  the  air  in  from  below,  and  put  on  the  glass 
chimney  to  set  up  a  draught.  The  gas-lamp  is  still  later, 
only  having  come  into  practical  use  during  the  last  sixty 
years.  But  it  is  curious  to  notice  that  natural  gas-lighting 
had  long  been  known  in  places  where  decomposing  bi- 
tuminous beds  underground  set  free  carburetted  hydrogen. 
Thus  at  the  famous  lire-temples  of  Baku  (west  of  the 
Caspian),  a  hollow  cane  was  stuck  in  the  ground  near  the 
altar,  through  which  the  gas  rose  and  burnt  at  its  mouth, 
while  the  pilgrim  fire-worshippers  prostrated  themselves  and 
adored  the  sacred  flame.  In  China,  at  salt  springs  where 
such  a  supply  of  natural  gas  comes  up,  the  practical- 
minded  people  are  content  to  lay  it  on  through  bamboos 
into  the  buildings,  to  boil  the  brine-kettles  and  light  up  the 
works. 

The  examination    here   made  of  the  modes  of  cooking 

19 


274  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

requires  some  notice  of  vessels.  For  water-vessels  men 
can  make  shift  without  the  art  of  the  potter,  using  joints  of 
bamboo,  coco-nut  shells,  calabash  rinds,  buckets  scooped 
out  of  wood,  pails  of  bark,  bottles  of  skin.  The  horseman 
in  desert  regions  carries  his  water-gourd  at  his  saddle-bow, 
and  even  where  a  glass  imitation  has  come  in,  the  French  go 
on  calling  it  z^  gourde,  just  as  we  keep  up  the  name  of  the  old 
leather  bottle  for  the  glass  ones  we  use  now.  It  was  one  of 
the  greatest  household  inventions  to  make  earthen  pots 
to  stand  the  tire  for  boiling.  When  and  where  pottery  was 
invented,  is  too  far  back  to  say.  On  the  sites  of  ancient 
dwellings,  wherever  earthenware  was  in  use,  potsherds 
may  be  picked  up  in  the  ground.  Where  they  are  not 
to  be  found,  as  among  the  relics  of  tribes  of  the  rein- 
deer-period in  the  caves  of  France,  it  may  be  safely 
concluded  that  these  eady  savages  had  not  come  so  far  in 
civilization.  The  same  is  true  of  the  Australians,  Fuegians, 
and  many  other  modern  savages  who  had  no  pottery,  and 
no  broken  bits  in  their  soil  to  show  that  their  predecessors 
ever  had.  One  asks,  how  did  men  first  hit  upon  the  idea  of 
making  an  earthen  pot?  It  may  not  look  a  great  stretch  of 
invention,  but  invention  moved  by  slow  steps  in  early  cul- 
ture, and  there  are  some  uxcts  which  lead  to  the  guess  that 
even  pots  were  not  made  all  at  once.  There  are  accounts  of 
rude  tribes  plastering  their  wooden  vessels  with  clay  to  stand 
the  fire,  while  others,  more  advanced,  moulded  clay  over 
gourds,  or  inside  baskets,  which  being  then  burnt  away  left 
an  earthen  vase,  and  the  marks  of  the  plaiting  remained  as 
an  ornamental  pattern.  It  may  well  have  been  through  such 
intermediate  stages  that  the  earliest  potters  came  to  see  that 
they  could  shape  the  clay  alone  and  burn  it  hard.  This 
shaping  was  doubtless  at  first  done  by  hand,  as  in  America 
or  Africa  the  native  women  may  still  be  seen  building  up 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  275 

large  and  shapely  jars  or  kettles  from  the  bottom,  moulding 
on  the  clay  bit  by  bit.  So  in  Europe,  as  any  museum  of  an- 
tiquities shows,  the  funeral  urns  and  other  earthen  vessels 
of  the  stone  and  bronze  ages  were  hand-made ;  and  even 
now  tourists  who  visit  the  Hebrides  buy  earthen  cups  and 
bowls  of  an  old  woman  who  makes  them  in  ancestral 
fashion  without  a  potter's  wheel,  and  ornaments  them  with 
lines  drawn  with  a  pointed  stick.  Yet  the  potter's  wheel 
was  known  in  the  world  from  high  antiquity.  Fig.  73  re- 
presents Egyptian  potters  at  work,  as  shown  in  the  wall- 
paintings  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings.  It  is  seen  that  they 
turned  the  wheel  by  hand.    So  the  Hindu  potter  is  described 


Fig.  73.— Ancient  Egyptian  Potter's  Wheel  (Beni  Hassan). 

as  now  going  down  to  the  river  side  when  a  flood  has 
brought  him  a  deposit  of  fine  clay,  when  all  he  has  to  do  is 
to  knead  a  batch  of  it,  stick  up  his  pivot  in  the  ground, 
balance  the  heavy  wooden  table  on  the  top,  give  it  a  spin 
round,  and  set  to  work.  It  was  an  improvement  on  this 
simplest  wheel  to  work  it  from  below  by  the  foot,  and  in  our 
potteries  a  labourer  drives  it  with  a  wheel  and  band,  but  the 
principle  remains  unchanged.  As  we  watch  with  untiring 
pleasure  the  potter  with  this  simple  machine  so  easily  bring- 
ing shape  out  of  shapelessness,  we  can  well  understand  how 
in  the  ancient  world  it  seemed  the  very  type  of  creation, 
80  that  the  Egyptians  pictured  one  of  their  deities  as  a 


276  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

potter  moulding  Man  on  the  wheel.  Fine  art  made  some 
of  its  earliest  and  most  successful  efforts  in  shaping  the 
earthen  vase,  engraving  and  moulding  patterns  or  figures 
on  it.  and  painting  it  with  pictures  of  gods  and  heroes,  or 
scenes  from  myth  or  daily  life,  so  that  much  of  our  know- 
ledge of  such  nations  as  Etruscans  and  even  Greeks  is 
derived  from  the  paintings  on  their  vases,  art-relics  almost 
everlasting  though  so  fragile.  A  great  part  of  the  pottery 
of  the  world  is  still  of  the  first  and  simplest  kind,  mere 
baked  clay  (Italian  terra  cotta)  without  glaze  like  our  flower- 
pots, and  therefore  porous.  To  cure  this  fault,  some  people, 
as  the  Peruvians,  varnished  it,  while  even  the  Greeks  often 
burnt  in  bitumen.  The  great  improvement  of  glazing,  that 
is,  melting  on  a  glassy  coating  in  the  furnace,  was  already 
known  in  ancient  Egypt  and  Babylonia,  while  in  later  ages 
glazed  earthenware  reached  high  artistic  excellence  in  the 
Persian  ware  and  the  majolica  (from  Majorca).  In  China  a 
more  perfect  ware  had  been  made  above  a  thousand  years 
before  European  potters  got  at  the  secret  of  imitating  it. 
We  call  it  chhia,  or  by  the  curious  name  porcelain,  which 
originally  meant  a  kind  of  oriental  nacre  or  mother-of-pearl. 
China  or  porcelain  dishes  are  made  of  fine  white  kaolin  or 
porcelain  clay,  and  fired  so  intensely  that  the  ware  becomes 
vitrified  not  only  at  the  glazed  surface  but  through  the  sub- 
stance. The  common  principle  in  all  these  varieties  of 
earthenware  is  that  silica  (which  with  alumina  is  present  in 
all  clay)  forms  fusible  glassy  silicates,  which  in  terra  cotta 
bind  the  mass  together,  and  in  glazed  earthenware  and  china 
coat  it  on  the  surface  or  through. 

Glass  itself  is  a  fusible  silicate  of  this  kind,  the  base  being 
potash,  soda,  and  sometimes  lead.  There  is  a  fanciful 
story  told  by  Pliny,  describing  its  invention  as  having  taken 
place  on  a  sandy  shore  of  Phoinicia,  where  a  ship  happening 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  277 

to  be  moored,  the  merchants  finding  no  stones  to  boil 
their  kettle  on,  brought  on  shore  lumps  of  nitre  with  which 
the  ship  happened  to  be  laden,  whereupon  the  fire  melted 
the  silica  and  alkali  into  glass.  But  the  fact  is  that  glass- 
making  was  an  Egyptian  art  ages  before  the  rise  of  Phoenician 
commerce,  and  to  all  appearance  the  Phoenicians  and  other 
nations  learnt  it  from  thence.  Fig.  74  shows  an  Egyptian 
glass  blower.  Among  other  things  he  would  have  made 
flasks  to  be  covered  with  reed,  much  like  our  present 
oil-flasks  The  ancient  Egyptians  made  glass  beads,  and 
variegated  glass  cups,  which  even  the  Venetian  glassworks 


Fig   74. — Ancient  Egj'ptian  Glass-bl  jwing  (Bern  Hassan). 

can  hardly  match.  But  modern  Europe  may  claim  the 
clever  art  of  making  crown  glass  for  window-panes  by 
twirling  the  red-hot  blown  globe  till  it  opens  in  a  circular 
sheet,  and  also  the  polishing  of  sheets  of  plate-glass,  which 
make  possible  our  great  looking-glasses  with  their  backs  of 
brilliant  tin  amalgam. 

Fire  is  so  important  a  means  in  extracting  metal  from  the 
ore  and  working  it  afterwards,  that  some  account  of  the  use 
of  metal  may  properly  come  in  this  chapter.  But  in 
thinking  how  men  were  led  to  the  difficult  processes  of 
smelting  ores  to  extract  the  metal,  it  has  to  be  remembered 
that  some  metals  are  found  in  the  metallic  state.  Thus  the 
native  copper  near  Lake  Superior  was  used  in  long-past  ages 


278  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

by  the  tribes  then  living  in  the  country,  who  treated  bits 
of  the  metal  as  a  kind  of  malleable  stone,  hammering  it 
cold  into  hatchets,  knives,  and  bracelets.  The  same  is 
true  of  gold,  natural  nuggets  of  which  can  be  beaten  cold 
into  ornaments.  It  is  only  a  guess  that  metal-working 
may  have  begun  in  this  simple  way ;  still  it  seems  a 
likely  guess.  Iron  also  is  found  in  the  metallic  state, 
especially  in  the  aerolites  or  meteoric  stones  which  fall 
on  the  earth  from  time  to  time.  Though  in  many  of 
these  the  metal  is  apt  to  shiver  to  bits  under  the  hammer, 
there  is  some  meteoric  and  other  native  iron  fit  to 
be  made  into  implements  when  heated  white-hot  in  the 
forge,  and  it  can  even  be  to  some  extent  worked  cold. 
Some  of  the  ores  of  metal  are  themselves  so  metallic- 
looking  that  the  smith  would  attempt  to  work  them  in  the 
fire,  and  this  may  have  led  to  proper  smelting.  Thus 
magnetic  iron  ore  not  only  looks  like  iron,  but  can  be 
heated  in  the  forge,  and  then  and  there  hammered  into 
such  things  as  horse-shoes. 

It  is  a  question  whether  men  first  worked  copper  or  iron. 
In  classic  times,  indeed,  people  felt  certain  that  bronze  was 
in  use  before  iron.  This  bronze  is  an  alloy  of  copper  with 
about  a  ninth  of  tin  to  harden  it,  what  an  English  mechanic 
would  now  call  "gun-metal."  An  often-quoted  line  of 
Hesiod's  tells  how  the  men  of  old  worked  in  bronze  when 
as  yet  black  iron  was  not ;  and  Lucretius,  the  Epicurean 
poet,  taught  that  after  the  primitive  time  when  men  fought 
with  sticks  and  stones,  iron  and  bronze  were  discovered, 
but  bronze  was  known  before  iron.  However,  the  Greeks 
and  Romans  did  not  really  remember  very  ancient  times, 
and  in  some  countries  the  use  of  iron  was  early. 
Egyptian  and  Babylonian  inscriptions  make  mention  of 
iron  as  well  as   copper.      A    piece  of  wrought  iron   taken 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  279 

out  ot  the  masonry  of  the  great  pyramid  may  be  seen  in 
the  British  Museum,  and  there  are  Egyptian  pictures  even 
showing   the  blue    steel   which    the   butcher    had   hanging 
at  his  side  to  sharpen  his   knife  on.     Now  what  is  to  be 
particularly  noticed  is  that  the  Egyptians,  though  tliey  thus 
had  iron,    mostly   made  their  carpenters'  tools  of  bronze. 
Among  the  Homeric  Greeks,  the  smiths  knew  of  iron,  and 
even  of  steel  or  steely  iron,  if  one  may  judge  so  from  the 
famous  passage  in  the  Odyssey  (ix.  391),   about  the  hissing 
of  the    axe   as    the  smith    dips    it   in    the   cold   water    to 
strengthen    the  iron.     Yet   all    the   while  bronze  was    the 
ordinary    material  not  only    for  the  warrior's    armour    and 
shield,  but  lor  his  spear  and  sword.     Clearly  we  have  here 
a  state  of  arts  very  unlike  our  own  now,   and   it  is  worth 
while  to  try  to  understand   the  difference.     An  instructive 
remark  in   Kaempfer's   account   of    Japan   near   two   cen- 
turies ago,  may  help  to  explain  it,  where  he  says  that  both 
copper  and  iron  were   smelted    in    the  country,  and   were 
about  the  same  price,  so  that  iron  tools  cost  as  much  as 
copper  or  brass  ones.      The  state  of  things  far  back  in  the 
ancient  world    may  have  been  something  like  this.     Iron, 
though    knovvn,    was     hard    to    smelt    from    the    ore,   and 
Homer's   calling    it  the  "  much-wrought  iron "  shows  how 
difficult  the  smiths   found    it   to   forge.      But   copper  was 
plentiful,  one  well-known  source  being  the  island  of  Cyprus, 
whence  its  name  of  ces  Cyprium  [coppe?').     Tin  had  not  to 
be  fetched  from  the  ends  of  the  world  ]  there  were  mines  in 
Georgia,   Khorassan,  and  elsewhere  in  inner  Asia,  where 
perhaps  the  discovery  was  made  of  using  it  to  harden  copper 
into  bronze.     When  once  this  had  been  hit  upon,  the  ease 
with    which  bronze   could    be   melted,  and   such  things  as 
hatchets  cast  in   stone  moulds,  would  make  it  more  con- 
venient than  iron  to  the  ancient  artificer.     This  may  have 


28o  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

been  the  real  reason  why  the  "  bronze  age  "  set  in  over  a 
great  part  of  Europe  and  Asia,  and  was  only  followed  by  the 
"iron  age"  when  iron  coming  to  be  better  worked,  cheaper 
and  more  plentiful,  and  steel  especially  being  improved, 
brought  out  that  superiority  to  bronze  for  tools  and  weapons 
which-  to  us  seems  a  matter  of  course.  The  remains  of  the 
lake-dwellings  of  Switzerland  show  how  central  Europe  was 
once  inhabited  by  rude  tribes  using  stone  implements,  how 
at  a  later  period  bronze  hatchets  and  spears  prevailed,  and 
lastly  iron  came  in.  Such,  too,  has  been  the  history  of  the 
stone,  bronze,  and  iron  ages,  traced  by  archaeologists  in  the 
burial-places  of  old  Scandinavia,  whether  the  use  of  the 
new  metals  was  learnt  by  the  native  nations  or  brought  in 
by  conquering  invaders.  Nations  living  in  the  bronze  age 
are  known  to  history,  especially  the  Mexicans  and  Peruvians, 
whom  the  Spaniards  at  the  conquest  found  working  in  bronze 
with  some  skill,  but  knowing  nothing  of  iron  ;  their  state 
was  like  that  of  the  Massagetse  of  central  Asia,  described 
by  Herodotus  some  two  thou-sand  years  earlier.  Most  of 
Africa,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  have  had  no  bronze 
age,  but  to  have  passed  directly  from  the  stone  age  to  the 
iron  age.  Iron-smelting  seems  to  have  come  into  Africa  in 
the  north,  and  only  spread  lately  down  to  the  Hottentots, 
who  still  remember  in  their  stories  the  time  when  their 
ancestors  used  to  cut  down  trees  with  stones.  The  Africans 
easily  dig  up  their  rich  iron  ore  and  smelt  it  with  wood  in 
simple  furnaces  which  may  be  mere  holes  in  the  ground,  the 
draught  being  generally  by  bellows.  The  primitive  pair  of 
bellows  may  there  be  seen,  made  of  whole  skins  of  goats  or 
other  animals,  of  which  the  one  full  of  air  is  pressed  or 
trodden  on,  while  the  emjity  one  is  pulled  up  to  fill  itself 
through  a  slit  or  valve.  This  shows  iron-smelting  not  far 
from  its  rudest  and  probably  earliest  state.      Among  the 


xr.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  281 

various  improvements  which  have  now  made  iron  more 
plentiful  than  in  ancient  times  are  the  use  of  coke  instead 
of  charcoal  for  smelting ;  the  introduction  of  cast-iron, 
which  seems  old  in  China,  but  was  not  common  in  England 
till  the  last  century ;  the  use  of  machinery  for  rolling  and 
forging.  The  progress  of  steel-making  has  been  such  as 
lately  to  make  it  possible  for  railways  to  be  laid  down  with 
steel  at  a  penny  a  pound. 

Other  metals  and  their  effect  on  civilization  may  be  spoken 
of  briefly.  Silver  has  from  ancient  times  been  the  companion 
of  gold,  as  precious  metals.  Lead  was  easily  extracted,  and 
served  the  Romans  for  roofs  and  water-pipes.  The  alloy  of 
copper  and  zinc  was  made  by  the  Romans  not  by  fusing 
together  the  two  metals,  but  by  heating  copper  with  the  zinc 
ore  called  calamine;  the  result  was  brass,  an  inferior  kind 
of  bronze.  Quicksilver  was  known  to  the  ancients,  who 
distilled  it  from  the  red  cinnabar,  and  understood  its  use  in 
extracting  gold  and  silver,  and  for  gilding.  Of  the  many 
metals  which  have  become  known  in  modern  times  some 
have  practical  uses.  Thus  platinum  is  valuable  for  vessels 
which  have  to  bear  extreme  heat  or  resist  the  action  of 
acids,  and  aluminium  is  useful  for  its  remarkable  lightness. 
But  we  still  mostly  depend  on  the  metals  whose  origin  is 
lost  in  antiquity — iron,  copper,  tin,  lead,  silver,  and  gold. 

The  mention  of  these  last  precious  metals  leads  us  to 
notice  the  important  part  which  coin  has  had  in  developing 
civilization,  and  this  again  belongs  to  the  general  history  of 
trade  or  commerce.  The  modern  Englishman,  accustomed 
to  shops  and  counting-houses,  hardly  realises  from  what 
rude  beginnings  our  complex  commercial  system  arose. 
It  is  instructive  to  see  trade  in  its  lowest  form  among  such 
tribes  as  the  Australians.  The  tough  greenstone,  valuable 
for  making  hatchets,  is  carried  hundreds  of  miles  by  natives 


282  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

who  receive  from  other  tribes  in  return  the  prized  products 
of  their  districts,  such  as  red  ochre  to  paint  their  bodies 
with  ;  they  have  even  got  so  far  as  to  let  peaceful  traders 
pass  unharmed  through  tribes  at  war,  so  that  trains  of  youths 
might  be  met,  each  lad  with  a  slab  of  sandstone  on  his 
head  to  be  carried  to  his  distant  home  and  shaped  into  a 
seed-crusher.  When  strangers  visit  a  tribe,  they  are  re- 
ceived at  a  friendly  gathering  or  corrobboree,  and  presents 
are  given  on  both  sides.  No  doubt  there  is  a  general  sense 
that  the  gifts  are  to  be  fair  exchanges,  and  if  either  side  is 
not  satisfied  there  will  be  grumbling  and  quarrelling.  But 
in  this  roughest  kind  of  barter  we  do  not  yet  find  that  clear 
notion  of  a  unit  of  value  which  is  the  great  step  in  trading. 
This  higher  stage  is  found  among  the  Indians  of  British 
Columbia,  whose  strings  of  haiqua-shells,  worn  as  orna- 
mental borders  to  their  dresses,  serve  them  also  as  currency 
to  trade  with,  a  string  of  ordinary  quality  being  reckoned 
as  worth  one  beaver's  skin.  In  the  Old  World  many  traces 
have  come  down  of  the  times  when  value  was  regularly 
reckoned  in  cattle  ;  as  where  in  the  Iliad,  in  the  description 
of  the  funeral  games,  we  read  of  the  great  prize  tripod  that 
was  valued  at  twelve  oxen,  while  the  female  slave  who  was 
the  second  prize  was  only  worth  four  oxen.  Kere  the 
principle  of  unit  of  value  is  already  recognised,  for  not 
only  could  the  owner  of  oxen  buy  tripods  and  slaves  with 
them,  but  also  he  who  had  a  twelve-ox  tripod  to  sell  could 
take  in  exchange  three  slaves  reckoned  at  four  oxen  each. 
To  this  day  various  objects  of  use  or  ornament  pass  as 
currency,  especially  where  money  is  scarce.  Thus  the 
traveller  in  Abyssinia  may  have  to  buy  what  he  wants  with 
cakes  of  salt,  while  elsewhere  in  Africa  he  has  to  carry  iron 
hoe-blades,  pieces  of  cloth,  and  strings  of  beads  as  money. 
Cowry-shells  are  still  small  change  in  South  Asia,  as  they 


XI]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  283 

have  been  since  time  immemorial.  These  things  do  more 
or  less  clumsily  what  metal  money  does  so  conveniently. 
The  use  of  money  arose  out  of  gold  and  silver  being  in  old 
times  bartered  by  weight  for  goods,  as  may  be  seen  in  the 
pictures  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  weighing  in  scales  heaps 
of  rings  of  gold  and  silver,  which  shows  that  these  were 
not  yet  real  money.  It  is  thus  still  with  much  of  the  gold 
and  silver  traded  with  in  the  East,  where  the  little  ingots 
have  to  be  weighed  and  reckoned  for  what  each  is  worth. 
The  invention  of  coin  comes  in  when  pieces  of  metal  are 
made  of  a  fixed  weight  and  standard,  and  marked  with  a 
figure  or  inscription  to  certify  them,  so  that  they  may  be 
taken  without  weighing  or  testing.  This  looks  a  simple 
thing  to  do,  but  the  old  Egyptians  and  Babylonians  are  not 
known  to  have  bit  upon  it.  Perhaps  the  earliest  money 
may  have  been  the  Chinese  little  marked  cubes  of  gold, 
and  the  pieces  of  copper  in  the  shapes  of  shirts  and 
knives,  as  though  intended  to  represent  real  shirts  or 
knives.  Coins  appear  in  Lydia  and  ^gina,  in  their  early 
form,  as  rude  dumps  of  precious  metal  stamped  on  one 
side  only  with  a  symbol  such  as  the  tortoise,  the  other 
side  showing  the  mark  of  the  anvil  or  tool  they  were 
placed  on  to  be  struck,  which  accidental  back-pattern 
came  to  be  improved  in  later  coins  into  the  ornamental  re- 
verse. Art  came  on  fast  in  coinage,  so  that  among  the  most 
beautiful  coins  in  the  world  are  the  gold  staters  of  Philip  of 
Macedon,  wath  the  laurel-crowned  head  on  one  side  and 
the  two-horse  chariot  on  the  other.  But  one  reason  why 
coins  are  no  longer  struck  in  such  high  relief  is  because 
they  would  be  rubbed  down  by  wear.  The  Roman  as  was 
not  stamped  but  cast ;  it  seems  to  have  been  at  first  a  pound 
of  copper,  its  name  meaning  "  one "  (as  ace  at  cards  still 
does).     From  early  ages  the  coinage  has  been  a  government 


284  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

monopoly,  and  the  practice  soon  began  of  lowering  the 
standard  and  lessening  the  weight  for  the  profit  of  the  royal 
treasury.  How  this  debasing  the  coinage  was  carried  on  in 
Europe  by  one  king  after  another  may  be  seen  in  the  fact 
that  the  libra  or  pound  of  silver  came  down  in  value  to  the 
French  livre  or  franc,  worth  tenpence,  and  to  the  '■'■  potind 
Scots,"  worth  twenty  pence.  Though  changed  in  value,  the 
coinage  of  old  times  may  be  traced  on  to  the  present  day, 
in  our  still  keeping  accounts  in  the  ^  s.  d.  (librEe,  solidi, 
denarii)  of  the  Romans. 

For  small  trading  and  at  home,  metal  money  answers 
well.  But  there  is  great  trouble  and  risk  in  sending  coin 
hundreds  of  miles  to  pay  for  goods  bought  at  a  distance. 
An  easily  carried  substitute  for  gold  and  silver  is  the  bank- 
note, a  promise  to  pay  so  much,  issued  by  the  treasury  or 
some  banker,  and  passing  as  money  from  hand  to  hand.  The 
Emperor  of  China  appears  to  have  issued  such  notes  in 
exchange  for  treasure  about  the  eighth  century,  and  in  the 
thirteenth  century  Marco  Polo,  the  famous  merchant-traveller 
in  Tartary,  describes  the  Great  Khan's  money  of  stamped 
pieces  of  m.ulberry-bark.  It  is  plain  from  this  account  that 
the  notion  of  paper-money  was  still  strange  to  the  mind  of 
an  European  trader,  but  since  then  bank-notes  have  be- 
come an  important  part  of  the  world's  currency.  Even 
more  useful  to  commerce  was  tlie  invention  of  bills  of  ex- 
change. Suppose  a  merchant  of  Genoa  to  have  sent  silks  to 
a  merchant  in  London.  He  does  not  send  for  his  money 
in  return,  but  gives  an  order  on  a  slip  of  paper  that  his  cor- 
respondent in  London,  who  owes  him  so  much,  is  to  pay 
it  in  so  many  days.  This  slip  of  paper  is  a  bill  of  exchange, 
and  is  bought  by  another  Genoese  merchant  who  happens 
to  owe  money  in  London,  and  pays  it  by  sending  over  the 
bill  which  claims  the  payment  of  the  money  there.      Thus, 


XI.]  ARTS  OF  LIFE.  285 

instead  of  gold  being  sent  backwards  and  forwards  to  pay 
for  shipments  between  London  and  Genoa,  one  debt  is  set 
off  against  another.  This  is  describing  in  its  simplest  form 
the  system  which  is  so  worked  in  the  exchanges  of  mer- 
cantile cities  all  over  the  world,  that  the  immense  transac- 
tions of  commerce  are  carried  on  by  mutual  credit,  with 
only  so  much  actual  travelling  of  gold  and  silver  as  is 
necessary  to  adjust  the  balances  between  the  different 
countries. 

The  main  principle  cf  modern  commerce  is  still  just 
what  it  was  among  the  rude  Indians  of  Brazil,  where  the 
tribes  who  make  the  deadly  arrow-poison  prepare  more 
than  they  want  for  their  own  use,  so  as  to  exchange  the  rest 
for  spears  of  the  hard  wood  that  grows  in  other  districts, 
or  the  hammocks  of  palm-fibre  netted  by  tribes  elsewhere. 
Wealth  is  created  by  trade  as  well  as  by  manufactures. 
The  Canadian  trapper  wants  for  his  own  use  but  few  of  his 
plentiful  furs,  but  all  he  can  take  are  wealth  to  him,  because 
the  trader  brings  him  in  exchange  the  clothes  and  groceries 
and  other  things  he  wants.  The  general  history  of  com- 
merce in  the  world,  which  is  the  development  of  this  simple 
principle,  need  not  be  dwelt  on  here  by  giving  details  of 
the  ancient  traffic  of  Egypt  with  Assyria  and  India,  the 
Phoenician  trading  colonies  on  the  Mediterranean,  the  old 
trade-routes  across  Asia  and  Europe,  the  rise  of  the  mer- 
chant princes  of  Genoa  and  Venice,  the  first  voyages  round 
the  Cape  to  the  East  Indies,  the  discovery  of  America,  the 
rise  of  ocean  steam-navigation.  It  is  specially  interesting  to 
the  student  of  civilization  to  notice  that  the  travelling 
merchant  had  in  early  ages  another  business  hardly  less  im- 
portant than  conveying  ivory  and  incense  and  fine  linen  from 
where  they  were  plentiful  to  where  they  were  scarce.  He 
was  the  bringer  of  foreign  knowledge  and  the  explorer  of 


286  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap  xi. 

distant  regions  in  days  when  nations  were  more  shut  up  than 
now  within  their  own  borders,  or  went  across  them  only  as 
enemies  to  ravage  and  destroy.  The  merchants  did  much 
to  break  down  the  everlasting  jealousy  and  strife  between 
nations  into  peaceful  and  profitable  intercourse.  More- 
over it  may  be  plainly  proved  that  the  old  hostile  system  of 
nations  is  kept  up  by  every  kind  of  restriction  on  trade, 
every  protective  duty  imposed  to  force  the  production  of 
commodities  in  countries  ill-suited  to  them,  to  prevent  their 
coming  in  cheap  and  good  from  where  they  are  raised  with 
least  labour.  There  is  no  agent  of  civilization  more 
beneficial  than  the  free  trader,  who  gives  the  inhabitants  of 
every  region  the  advantages  of  all  other  regions,  and  whose 
business  is  to  work  out  the  law  that  what  serves  the  general 
profit  of  mankind  serves  also  the  private  profit  of  the 
individual  man. 


CHAPTER   XII, 

ARTS    OF    PLEASURE. 

Poetry,  287 — Verse  and  Metre,  288 — Alliteration  and  Rhyme,  289 — 
Poetic  Metaphor,  289 — Speech,  Melody,  Harmony,  290 — Musical 
In^trucaents,  293 — Dancing,  296  -Drama,  298 — Sculpture  and 
Painting,  300 — Ancient  and  Modern  Art,  301 — Games,  305. 

To  those  who  have  not  thought  particularly  about  straight- 
forward prose  talk,  and  poetry  which  is  set  in  metre  and 
rhyme,  and  song  which  is  chanted  to  a  tune,  it  may  seem 
that  these  are  three  clearly  distinct  things.  But  on  careful 
exammation  it  is  found  that  they  shade  into  one  another, 
and  it  can  be  made  out  how  human  speech  passed  into  all 
three  states.  Savage  tribes  have  some  set  form  in  their 
chants,  which  shows  they  feel  them  different  from  common 
talk.  Thus  Australians,  to  work  themselves  into  fury  before 
a  fight,  will  chant,  "Spear  his  forehead! — Spear  his  breast ! 
— Spear  his  liver ! — Spear  his  heart !  "  and  so  on  with  the 
other  parts  of  the  enemy's  body.  Another  Australian  chant 
is  sung  at  native  funerals,  the  young  women  taking  the  first 
Ime,  the  old  women  the  second,  and  all  together  the  third 
and  fourth. 

''  Kardang  garro  "  Young-brother  again 

Mammul  garro  Son  again 

Mela  nadjo  Hereafter  I-shall 

Nunga  broo."  See  never." 


288  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Here  the  words  of  the  savage  chant  are  no  longer  mere 
prose,  but  have  passed  into  a  rude  kind  of  verse.  All  bar- 
baric tribes  hand  down  such  songs  by  memory,  and  make 
new  ones.  The  North  American  hunter  lias  chants  which 
will  bring  him  on  the  bear's  track  next  morning,  or  give  him 
victory  over  an  enemy.  The  following  is  the  translation  of  a 
New  Zealand  song  : — 

"  Thy  body  is  at  Waitemata, 
But  ihy  spirit  came  hither 
And  aroused  me  from  my  sleep. 

Chorus — Ha-ah,  ha-ah,  ha-ab,  ha  !  " 

This  last  shows  a  feature  extremely  common  in  barbaric 
songs,  the  refrain  of  generally  meaningless  syllables.  We 
moderns  are  often  stiuck  with  the  absurdity  of  the  nonsense- 
chorus  in  many  of  our  own  songs,  but  the  habit  is  one  which 
seems  to  have  been  kept  up  from  the  stages  of  culture  in 
which  the  Australian  savage  sings  "  Abang  !  abang  !  "  over 
and  over  at  the  end  of  his  verse,  or  a  Red  Indian  hunting- 
party  enjoy  singing  in  chorus  "  Nyah  eh  wa  !  nyah  eh  wa  !  " 
to  an  accompaniment  of  rattles  like  those  which  children 
use  with  us. 

It  is  among  nations  at  a  higher  stage  of  culture  that 
there  appears  regular  metre,  where  the  verses  are  measured 
accurately  in  syllables.  The  ancient  hymns  of  the  Veda  are 
in  re'gular  metre,  and  this  is  proof  how  far  the  old  Aryans 
had  advanced  beyond  the  savage  state.  Indeed  the  re- 
semblances between  the  metre  of  the  most  ancient  Indian 
and  Persian  and  Greek  poetry  show  that  in  the  remote  ages 
of  their  national  connection  their  measured  verse  had  already 
begun.  Metre  is  best  known  to  us  from  Greek  and  Latin 
verses,  but  there  are  more  metres  in  the  world  than  Horace 
knew  of.  For  instance,  when  Longfellow  versified  a  collection 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  289 

of  American  native  tales  in  his  "  Song  of  Hiawatha," 
he  found  no  metre  among  the  Indians  themselves,  who  were 
not  cultured  enough  to  have  such  a  device ;  so  he  imitated 
the  peculiar  metre  of  the  Kalewala,  tlie  epic  poem  chanted 
by  the  native  bards  of  Finland.  Our  own  poetry,  where 
the  verses  are  scanned  by  accent,  differs  in  its  nature  from 
the  classic  metres  whose  syllables  are  measured  by  quantity 
or  length.  Later  than  the  invention  of  metre,  came  other 
means  by  which  the  poet  could  please  his  hearers  with  new 
etfects  of  matched  and  balanced  sounds.  Thus  our  early 
English  forefathers  rejoiced  in  alliteration,  w^here  the  same 
consonant  comes  in  again  and  again,  with  a  frequency  which 
would  weary  our  modern  taste,  though  our  ear  is  pleased 
with  occasional  touches  of  it,  as 

"  Sober  he  seemde,  and  very  sagely  sad." — Spenser. 
**  He  rushed  into  the  field,  and,  foremost  fighting,  fell." — Byron. 

Rhyme,  too,  seems  comparatively  modern  in  the  Avorld's 
history  of  poetry.  Its  clumsy  beginnings  may  be  judged 
from  such  lines  as  these  of  an  old  Latin  poet  (perhaps 
Ennius)  quoted  by  Cicero  : — - 

"  Coelum  nitescere,  arbores  frondescere, 
Vites  la^tifica;  pampinis  pubepcere. 
Rami  bacarum  ubertate  incurvescere." 

Thus  the  Christian  hymns  of  the  middle  ages,  such  as  the 
famous  "  Dies  Irae,"  did  not  bring  in  rhyme  as  quite  a 
novelty,  but  they  used  it  skilfully  and  made  it  common,  and 
it  was  taken  up  also  by  the  Troubadours,  the  masters  and 
teachers  of  Europe  in  the  poetic  art. 

The  best  poetry  of  our  own  day  is  full  of  quaint  fancy 
and  dehcate  melody,  the  setting  of  lovely  thought  in  har- 
monious language,  at  once  pictures  for  the  imagination  and 


290  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chak 

music  for  the  ear.  But  besides  this,  it  has  a  curious  interest 
to  the  student  of  history,  as  keeping  ahve  in  our  midst  the 
ways  of  thought  of  the  most  ancient  world.  Much  of  poetic 
art  hes  in  imitating  the  expressions  of  earMer  stages  of  culture, 
when  poetry  was  the  natural  utterance  of  any  strong  emotion, 
the  natural  means  to  convey  any  solemn  address  or  ancestral 
tradition.  The  modern  poet  still  uses  for  picturesqueness 
the  metaphors  which  to  the  barbarian  were  real  helps  to 
express  his  sense.  This  may  be  seen  in  analyzing  a  poem 
of  Shelley's  : — 

"  How  wonderful  is  Death, 

Death  and  his  brother,  Sleep  ! 
One,  pale  as  yonder  waning  moon. 

With  lipi  of  lurid  blue  ; 

The  other,  rosy  as  the  morn 
When  throned  on  ocean's  wave 

It  blushes  o'er  the  world." 

Here  the  likeness  of  death  and  sleep  is  expressed  by  the 
metaphor  of  calling  them  brothers,  the  moon  is  brought  in 
to  illustrate  the  notion  of  paleness,  and  the  dawn  of  redness; 
while  to  convey  the  idea  of  the  dawn  shining  over  the  sea 
the  simile  of  its  sitting  on  a  throne  is  introduced,  and  its 
reddening  is  compared  on  the  one  hand  to  a  rose,  and  on 
the  other  to  blushing.  Now  this  is  the  very  way  in 
which  early  barbaric  man,  not  for  poetic  affectation,  but 
simply  to  find  the  plainest  words  to  convey  his  thoughts, 
would  talk  in  metaphors  taken  from  nature.  Even  our  daily 
prose  is  full  of  words,  now  come  down  to  ordinary  use, 
which  show  vestiges  of  this  old  nature-poetry,  and  the 
etymologist  may,  if  he  will,  set  up  again  the  pictures  of  the 
old  poetic  thoughts  which  made  the  words. 

To  read  or  recite  poetry  as  we  moderns  do  is  to  alter  its 
proper  nature,  for  the  purpose  of  poetry  was  to  be  chanted. 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  291 

But  this  very  chanting  or  singing  grew  out  of  talking.  On 
listening  carefully  to  the  talk  going  on  around  us,  we  may 
observe  that  it  does  not  run  in  an  unchanged  monotone,  but 
that  all  sentences  are  intoned  to  an  imperfect  tune,  a  rise 
and  fall  of  pitch  marking  the  phrases,  distinguishing  question 
and  answer,  and  touching  emphatic  words  with  a  musical 
accent.  This  half-melody  of  common  speech  may  be 
roughly  written  down  in  notes;  it  is  not  the  same  in  English 
and  German  ;  and  indeed  one  way  in  which  a  Scotchman's 
talking  is  known  from  an  Englishman's  is  the  different  in- 
toning of  his  phrases.  When  speech  becomes  solemn  or 
impassioned,  it  passes  more  and  more  into  natural  chanting, 
•which  at  devotional  meetings  may  be  heard  nearly  passing 
into  distinct  tune.  The  intoning  in  churches  arose  from  the 
same  natural  utterance  of  religious  feeling,  but  in  course  of 
time  it  became  fixed  by  custom,  and  was  forced  into  the 
regular  intervals  of  the  musical  scale.  So  the  artificial 
recitative  of  the  opera  is  a  modern  musicat  working  up  of 
what  has  come  down  by  tradition  of  the  ancient  tragic 
declamation,  which  once  swayed  the  listening  throng  of  the 
Greek  theatre. 

We  are  apt  to  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  all  music 
must  be  made  up  of  notes  in  scale,  and  that  scale  the  one 
we  have  been  used  to  from  childhood.  But  the  chants  of 
rude  tribes,  which  perhaps  best  represent  singing  in  its  early 
stages,  run  in  less  fixed  tones,  so  that  it  is  difticult  to  write 
down  their  airs.  The  human  voice  is  not  bound  to  a  scale 
of  notes,  for  its  pitch  can  glide  up  and  down.  Nor  among 
nations  who  sing  and  play  by  musical  scales  are  the  tones 
of  these  scales  always  the  same.  The  question  how  men 
were  led  to  exact  scales  of  tones  is  not  easy  to  answer  fully. 
But  one  of  the  simplest  scales  was  forced  upon  their  atten- 
tion by  that   early    musical    instrument  the  trumpet,    rude '" 


292  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

forms  of  which  are  seen  in  the  long  tubes  of  wood  or  bark 
blown  by  forest  tribes  in  South  America  and  Africa.  A 
trumpet  (a  six  feet  length  of  iron  gas  pipe  will  do)  will  sound 
the  successive  notes  of  the  "  common  chord,"  which  may  be 
written  c  e  g  c,  on  which  the  trumpeter  performs  the  simple 
tunes  known  so  well  as  trumpet-calls.  This  natural  scale, 
perfect  so  far  as  it  goes,  contains  the  most  important  of 
musical  intervals,  the  octave,  fifth,  fourth,  and  third.  Another 
scale,  of  more  notes  than  this,  though  of  fewer  than  our  full 
scale,  is  not  less  familiar  to  English  ears.  This  is  the  old 
five-tone  scale,  without  semitones,  which  can  be  played  on 
the  five  black  keys  of  the  pianoforte,  and  the  best-known 
form  of  which  may  be  written  c,  d,  e,  g,  a,  c.  Old  Scotch 
airs  are  on  the  five-tone  scale,  which  mdeed  may  still  be 
met  with  across  the  world,  as  where  some  traveller  in  China 
watching  a  funeral  procession  has  been  surprised  to  hear  a 
melancholy  dirge  like  what  he  last  heard  played  by  a  piper 
on  the  shore  of  a  Highland  loch.  Engel,  in  his  Music  of 
Ancient  Nations,  shows  that  music  of  this  pentatonic  or 
five-toned  kind  has  belonged  since  early  times  to  other 
Eastern  nations,  so  that  any  genuine  Scotch  melody  like 
"Auld  Lang-syne"  may  give  some  idea  of  the  music  of  anti- 
quity. The  more  advanced  seven-tone  scale  which  prevails 
in  the  modern  world  is  nearly  taken  from  that  of  the 
musicians  of  classic  Greece,  who  accompanied  the  singer's 
voice  on  the  eight-stringed  lyre.  Pythagoras,  who  first 
brought  musical  tones  under  arithmetical  rule,  had  the 
curious  fancy  that  the  distances  of  the  seven  planets  are 
related  as  the  seven  tones  of  the  octave,  an  idea  which 
still  dimly  survives  among  us  in  the  ])hrase  "  music  of  the 
spheres." 

Modern  music  is  thus  plainly  derived  from  ancient.     But 
there  has  arisen  in  it  a  great  new  development.     The  music 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  293 

of  the  ancients  scarcely  went  beyond  melody.  The  voice 
might  be  accompanied  by  an  instrument  in  unison  or  at  an 
octave  interval,  but  harmony  as  understood  by  modern 
musicians  was  as  yet  unknown.  Its  feeble  beginnings  may 
be  traced  in  the  middle  ages,  when  musicians  were  struck 
by  the  effects  got  by  singing  two  different  tunes  at  once, 
when  one  formed  a  harmony  to  the  other.  It  is  still  a  joke 
among  musicians  to  sing  together  in  this  old-fashioned 
way  two  absurdly  incongruous  tunes,  for  instance,  "  The 
Campbells  are  coming "  and  "  The  Vesper  hymn,"  so 
arranged  that  one  makes  a  sort  of  accompaniment  to  the 
other.  The  old  rounds  and  catches,  still  popular,  thus  make 
one  part  of  the  tune  serve  as  a  harmony  for  the  other. 
The  Roman  church  part-music,  and  the  Protestant  singing 
by  the  congregation,  with  the  organ  to  accompany  them, 
had  great  effect  in  making  the  change  by  which  the  mere 
melody  of  the  ancients  grew  into  the  harmonized  melody 
of  the  moderns.  This  great  step  once  understood,  the 
student  can  follow  in  the  history  of  music  its  successive 
stages  in  part-singing  and  orchestral  composition,  in  the 
church  and  the  concert-room,  till  in  the  hands  of  the  great 
composers  of  the  last  three  centuries  the  full  resources  of 
modern  musical  art  were  developed. 

The  musical  instruments  of  the  present  day  may  all  be 
traced  back  to  rude  and  early  forms.  The  rattle  and  the 
drum  are  serious  instruments  among  savages ;  the  rattle  has 
come  down  to  a  child's  toy  with  us,  but  the  drum  holds  its 
own  in  peace  and  war.  Above  these  monotonous  instru- 
ments comes  the  trumpet,  which,  as  has  just  been  seen,  brings 
barbaric  music  a  long  step  further  on.  The  pipe  or  flageolet 
appears  in  its  simplest  form  in  the  common  whistle,  and  is 
improved  by  holes,  by  which  the  player  alters  the  length  of 
the  pipe  so  as  to  give   several  notes.     From  very  remote 


294  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

times,  and  far  and  wide  over  the  earth,  the  familiar  pipe  is 
found,  played  single  or  double,  and  sometimes  blown  with 
the  nostril  instead  of  the  mouth.  Already  in  the  ancient 
world  it  was  often  provided  with  a  skin  wind-bag  which 
made  it  into  the  bagpipe  ;  or,  held  sideways  and  blown  across 
the  mouth-hole,  it  became  the  flute.  Another  way  of  bring- 
ing out  a  range  of  notes  is  seen  in  the  Pan's  pipes,  the  row 
of  reeds  of  different  lengths,  in  old  classic  days  associated 
Avith  the  grac3  of  rural  poetry,  but  now  come  down  to  sound 
the  vulgar  pipings  of  the  street  showman.  In  the  modern 
orchestra,  the  cornet  is  a  trumpet  provided  with  stops.  The 
clarionet  is  a  development  of  the  grass- stem  with  a  vibrating 
slit  or  tongue  such  as  children  cut  in  the  fields  in  spring. 
The  whole  class  of  musical  instruments  to  which  the  har- 
monium belongs,  work  with  these  vibrating  tongues,  which 
by  their  name  of  "  reeds  "  still  keep  up  the  memory  of  their 
origin.  The  organ  carries  out  in  the  widest  range  and  grandest 
proportions  the  principle  of  the  simple  pipe  or  whistle,  so 
that  there  is  scientific  correctness  in  the  disrespectful  name 
of  "  kist  o'  whistles  "  given  it  by  the  Scotch,  who  disliked  its 
use  in  church.  Not  less  primitive  are  the  rudest  forms  in 
which  stringed  instruments  appear.  It  is  told  in  the  Odyssey 
(xxi.  410)  how  the  avenging  hero,  when  he  has  strung  his 
mighty  bovv  compact  of  wood  and  horn,  gives  the  stretched 
string  a  twang  that  makes  it  sing  like  a  swallow  in  a  soft 
tone  beautifully.  One  might  well  guess  that  the  strung  bow 
of  the  warrior  would  naturally  become  a  musical  instrument, 
but  what  is  more,  it  really  is  so  used.  The  Damara  in  South 
Africa  finds  pleasure  in  the  faint  tones  heard  by  striking  the 
tight  bowstring  with  a  little  stick.  The  Zulu  despises  the 
bow  as  a  cowardly  weapon,  but  he  still  uses  it  for  music ; 
jiis  music-bow,  shown  in  Fig.  75  a,  has  a  ring  slid  along  the 
string  to  alter  the  note,  and  is  also  provided  with  a  hollow 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  295 

gourd  acting  as  a  resonator  or  sounding-box  to  strengthen 
the  feeble  twang.  Next,  looking  at  h  in  the  figure,  it  is  seen 
how  the  ancient  Egyptian  harp  may  have  been  developed 
from  such  a  rude  music-bow,  the  wooden  back  being  now 
made  hollow  so  as  to  be  bow  and  resonator  in  one,  while 
across  it  are  strung  several  strings  of  different  lengths. 
All  ancient    harps,     Assyrian,    Persian,    even     old    Irish, 


Fig.  75.— rDevelopment  of  the    Harp,  a,   music-bow  with  gourd   resonator  (South 
Africa);  b,  ancient  harp  (Egypt)  ;  c,  mediaeval  harp  with  front-pillar  (Enj^land). 

were  made  on  this  plan,  yet  we  can  see  at  a  glance 
that  it  was  defective,  the  bending  of  the  wooden  back 
putting  the  strings  out  of  tune.  It  was  not  till  modern 
ages  that  the  improvement  was  made  of  completing  the 
harp  with  the  front-pillar,  as  seen  in  r,  which  makes  the 
whole  frame  rigid  and  firm.     Looking  at  the  three  figures,  it 


296  ANTHROPOLOGY,  [chap, 

is  seen  how  the  course  of  invention  was  by  gradual  growth ; 
the  harp  with  the  pillar  could  not  have  been  first  invented, 
for  no  men  could  have  been  so  stupid  as  to  go  on  making 
harps  and  leave  out  the  front-pillar  when  once  the  idea  of  it 
had  come  into  their  minds.  The  harp,  though  now  made 
more  perfect  than  of  old,  is  losing  its  ancient  pjlace  in  music  ; 
but  the  reason  of  this  is  easy  to  see,  it  has  been  supplanted 
by  modern  instruments  Avhich  have  come  from  it.  The  very 
form  of  a  grand  piano  shows  that  it  is  a  harp  laid  on  one 
side  in  a  case,  and  its  strings  not  plucked  with  the  fingers 
but  struck  with  hammers  worked  from  a  keyboard.  It  is 
the  latest  development  from  the  bowstring  of  the  prcehistoric 
warrior. 

Dancing  may  seem  to  us  moderns  a  frivolous  amusement ; 
but  in  the  infancy  of  civilization  it  was  full  of  passionate 
and  solemn  meaning.  Savages  and  barbarians  dance  their 
joy  and  sorrow,  their  love  and  rage,  even  their  magic  and 
religion.  The  forest  Indians  of  Brazil,  whose  sluggish 
temper  few  other  excitements  can  stir,  rouse  themselves  at 
their  moonlight  gatherings,  when,  rattle  in  hand,  they  stamp 
in  one-two-three  time  round  the  great  earthen  pot  of  intoxi- 
cating kavvi-liquor  ;  or  men  and  women  dance  a  rude  courting 
dance,  advancing  in  lines  with  a  kind  of  primitive  polka 
step ;  or  the  ferocious  war-dance  is  performed  by  armed 
warriors  in  paint,  marching  in  ranks  hither  and  thither  with 
a  growling  chant  terrific  to  hear.  We  have  enough  of  the 
savage  left  in  us  to  feel  how  Australians  leajjing  and  yelling 
at  a  corrobboree  by  firelight  in  the  forest  can  work  themselves 
up  into  frenzy  for  next  day's  fight.  But  with  our  civilized 
notions  it  is  not  so  easy  to  understand  that  barbarians' 
dancing  may  mean  still  more  than  this ;  it  seems  to  them 
so  real  that  they  expect  it  to  act  on  the  world  outside. 
Thus  among  the  Mandan  Indians,  when  the  hunters  failed 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  297 

to  find  the  bufialos  on  which  the  tribe  depended  for  food, 
every  man  brought  out  of  his  lodge  the  mask  made  of  a 
buffalo's  head  and  horns,  with  the  tail  hanging  down  behind, 
■which  he  kept  for  such  an  emergency,  and  they  all  set  to 
dance  buffalo.  Ten  or  fifteen  masked  dancers  at  a  time 
formed  the  ring,  drumming  and  rattling,  chanting  and 
yelling;  when  one  was  tired  out  he  went  through  the 
pantomime  of  being  shot  with  bow  and  arrow,  skinned,  and 
cut  up  ;  while  another,  who  stood  ready  with  his  buffalo-head 
on,  took  his  place  in  the  dance.  So  it  would  go  on,  without 
stopping  day  or  night,  sometimes  for  two  or  three  weeks, 
till  at  last  these  persevering  efforts  to  bring  the  buffalo 
succeeded,  and  a  herd  came  in  sight  on  the  prairie.  The 
description  and  sketch  of  the  scene  will  be  found  in  Catlin's 
North  American  Indians.  Such  an  example  shows  how,  in 
the  lower  levels  of  culture,  men  dance  to  express  their 
feelings  and  wishes.  All  this  explains  how  in  ancient 
religion  dancing  came  to  be  one  of  the  chief  acts  of  worship. 
Religious  processions  went  with  song  and  dance  to  the 
Egyptian  temples,  and  Plato  said  that  all  dancing  ought  to 
be  thus  an  act  of  religion.  In  fact,  it  was  so  to  a  great 
extent  in  Greece,  as  where  the  Cretan  chorus,  moving  in 
measured  pace,  sang  hymns  to  Apollo,  and  in  Rome,  where 
the  Salian  priests  sang  and  danced,  beating  their  shields, 
along  the  streets  at  the  yearly  festival  of  Mars.  Modern 
civilization,  in  which  sacred  music  flourishes  more  than 
ever,  has  mostly  cast  off  the  sacred  dance.  To  see  this 
near  its  old  state  the  traveller  may  visit  the  temples  of  India, 
or  among  the  lamas  of  Tibet  watch  the  mummers  in  animal 
masks  dancing  the  demons  out,  or  the  new  year  in,  to  wild 
music  of  drums  and  shell-trumpets.  Remnants  of  such 
ceremonies,  come  down  from  the  religion  of  England 
before    Christian    times,    are    still   som.etimes    to    be    seen 


298  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

in  the  dances  of  boys  and  girls  round  the  Midsummer 
bonfire,  or  of  the  mummers  at  Yuletide  ;  but  even  these 
are  dying  out.  The  dances  of  choristers  in  plumed  hats 
and  the  dress  of  pages  of  Philip  IIL's  time,  still  performed 
before  the  high  altar  of  Seville  Cathedral,  are  now  among 
the  quaintest  relics  of  a  rite  all  but  vanished  from  Christen- 
dom. Even  sportive  dancing,  as  a  graceful  exercise,  is 
falling  off  in  the  modern  world.  The  pictures  from  ancient 
Egypt  show  that  the  professional  dancers  were  already 
skilful  in  their  art,  which  perhaps  reached  its  highest  artistic 
pitch  in  classic  Greece  and  Rome.  Something  of  the  old- 
fashioned  picturesque  village-dancing  may  still  be  seen  at 
festivals  in  most  countries  of  Europe  except  England,  but 
the  ball-room  dances  of  modern  society  have  lost  much  of 
the  old  art  and  grace. 

At  low  levels  in  civilization  it  is  clear  that  dancing  and 
play-acting  are  one.  The  North  American  dog-dance  and 
bear-dance  are  mimic  performances  with  ludicrously  faithful 
imitations  of  the  creatures'  pawing  and  rolling  and  biting. 
So  the  scenes  of  hunting  and  war  furnish  barbarians  with 
subjects  for  dances,  as  when  the  Gold  Coast  negroes  have 
gone  out  to  war,  and  their  wives  at  home  dance  a  fetish- 
dance  in  imitation  of  battle,  to  give  their  absent  husbands 
strength  and  courage.  Historians  trace  from  the  sacred 
dances  of  ancient  Greece  the  dramatic  art  of  the  civilized 
world.  Thus,  in  the  festivals  of  the  Dionysia,  the  wondrous 
life  of  the  Wine-god  was  danced  and  sung,  and  from  its 
solemn  hymns  and  laughable  jests  arose  tragedy  and  comedy. 
In  the  classic  ages  the  player's  art  divided  into  several 
branches.  The  pantomimes  kept  up  the  earliest  form,  where 
the  dancer  acted  in  dumb  show  such  pieces  as  the  labours 
of  Herakles,  or  Kadmos  sowing  the  dragon's  teeth,  while  the 
chorus  below  accompanied  the  play  by  singing  the  story ; 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  299 

the  modern  pantomime  ballets,  which  keep  up  remains  of 
these  ancient  performances,  show  how  grotesque  the  old 
stage  gods  and  heroes  must  have  looked  in  their  painted 
masks.  In  Greek  tragedy  and  comedy  the  business  of  the 
dancers  and  chorus  was  separated  from  that  of  the  actors, 
who  recited  or  chanted  each  his  proper  part  in  the 
dialogue,  so  that  the  player  could  now  move  his  audience 
by  words  of  passion  or  wit,  delivered  with  such  tone  and 
gesture  as  laid  hold  on  all  who  listened  and  looked.  Greek 
tragedy,  once  begun,  soon  reached  its  height  among  the 
fine  arts,  so  that  the  plays  of  ^-Eschylos  and  Sophokles  are 
read  as  examples  of  the  higher  poetry,  and  the  modern 
acted  imitations  like  the  Phedre  of  Racine  give  an  idea  of 
their  power  when  the  genius  of  the  actors  can  rise  to  their 
height  of  emotion.  The  modern  drama  belongs  not  so 
much  to  the  sacred  mystery-plays  of  the  middle  ages  as  to 
the  classic  revival  or  renaissance  of  four  centuries  ago. 
Those  who  have  seen  the  ruins  of  classic  theatres  at 
Syracuse,  or  on  the  hill-side  of  Tusculum,  will  best  under- 
stand how  a  modern  playhouse  shows  its  Greek  origin 
not  only  in  the  arrangement,  but  in  the  Greek  names  of  its 
parts — the  theatre,  or  spectators'  place,  which  still  keeps  its 
well-planned  horse-shoe  shape ;  the  scene  Avith  its  painted 
background  and  curtain  in  front  ;  while  the  orchestra  or 
dancing-place,  which  was  formerly  for  the  chorus,  is  now 
given  up  to  the  musicians.  The  change  in  the  tragedy  and 
cofuetty  performed  in  the  modern  theatre  from  those  of  the 
classic  world  is  partly  due  to  their  having  dropped  the  stiff 
solemn  declamation  which  belonged  to  them  while  they  were 
still  religious  ceremonies,  and  their  personages  divine.  In 
the  hands  of  modern  dramatists,  of  Shakspere  above  all,  the 
characters  came  to  be  more  human,  though  representing 
human  nature  in  its  most  picturesque  extremes,  and  life  in 


300  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

its  intensest  moments.  Alodern  plays  are  not  indeed  bound 
to  be  strictly  natural,  but  can  still  call  in  tlie  supernatural, 
as  where  now  fairies  or  angels  may  hover  over  the  scene 
where  in  classic  days  the  gods  used  to  pass  in  mid-air 
borne  in  their  machines.  In  the  modern  comedy  the  per- 
sons dress  and  talk  as  near  as  may  be  like  daily  life  ; 
yet,  even  here,  when  the  audience  gravely  fall  in  with  the 
pretence  that  some  of  the  speeches,  though  spoken  aloud, 
are  "asides"  not  heard  by  the  actors  close  by,  this  shows 
that  the  modern  world  has  not  lost  the  power  to  make- 
believe,  on  which  all  dramatic  art  is  founded. 

On  this  same  power  of  make-believe  or  imagination  are 
founded  the  two  other  fine  arts,  sculpture  and  painting. 
Their  proper  purpose  is  not  to  produce  exact  imitations, 
but  what  the  artist  strives  to  bring  out  is  the  idea  that 
strikes  the  beholder.  Thus  there  is  often  more  real  art  in 
a  caricature  done  with  a  few  strokes  of  the  pencil,  or  in  a 
rough  image  hacked  out  of  a  log,  than  in  a  minutely  painted 
portrait,  or  a  figure  at  a  waxwork  show  which  is  so  like  life 
that  visitors  beg  its  pardon  when  they  walk  up  against  it. 
The  painter's  and  sculptor's  art  seems  to  have  arisen  in 
the  world  from  the  same  sort  of  rude  beginnings  which 
are  still  to  be  seen  in  children's  attempts  to  draw  and  carve. 
The  sheets  of  bark  or  skins  on  which  barbarous  tribes  have 
drawn  men  and  animals,  guns  and  boats,  remind  us  of  the 
slates  and  barn  doors  on  which  English  children  make  their 
early  trials  in  outline.  Many  of  these  children  will  grow  up 
and  go  through  their  lives  without  getting  much  beyond 
this  childish  stage.  The  clergyman  of  a  country  parish 
some  years  ago  set  the  cottagers  to  amuse  themselves  with 
carving  in  wood  such  figures  as  men  digging  or  reaping. 
They  produced  figures  so  curiously  uncouth,  and  in  style  so 
like  the  idols  of  barbarous  tribes,  that  they  were  kept  as 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  301 

examples  of  the  infancy  of  sculpture,  and  are  now  to  be 
seen  in  the  museum  of  Kew  Gardens.  Yet  mankind,  under 
favourable  circumstances,  especially  with  long  leisure  time 
on  their  hands,  began  in  remote  antiquity  to  train  themselves 
to  skill  in  art.  Especially  the  sketches  and  carvings  of 
animals  done  by  the  old  cave-men  of  Europe  have  so 
artistic  a  touch  that  some  have  supposed  them  modern 
forgeries.  But  they  are  admitted  to  be  genuine  and  found 
over  a  wide  district,  while  forgeries  which  have  been  really 
done  to  palm  off  on  collectors  are  just  wanting  in  the  pecu- 
liar skill  with  which  the  savages  who  lived  among  the  rein- 
deer and  mammoths  knew  how  to  catch  their  forms  and 
attitudes.  Two  of  these  ancient  carvings  are  drawn  in 
Figs.  3  and  4,  and  others  in  Lubbock's  Prehistoric  Times. 
The  art  of  colouring  would  naturally  arise,  for  savages  who 
paint  their  own  bodies  with  charcoal,  pipeclay,  and  red  and 
yellow  ochre,  would  daub  their  carved  figures  and  fill  in 
their  outline  drawings  with  the  same  colours.  Travellers  in 
Australia  sheltering  from  the  storm  in  caves,  wonder  at  the 
cleverness  of  the  rude  frescos  on  the  cavern-wails  of  kan. 
garoos  and  emus  and  natives  dancing,  while  in  South  Africa 
the  Bushmen's  caves  show  paintings  of  themselves  with 
bows  and  arrows,  and  the  bullock-waggons  of  the  white 
men,  and  the  dreaded  figure  of  the  Dutch  boer  with  his 
broad-brimmed  hat  and  pipe.  Among  such  people  as  the 
West  Africans  and  Polynesians,  the  native  sculptor's  best 
skill  has  been  used  on  images  of  demons  and  gods,  made 
to  receive  worship  and  serve  as  bodies  in  which  the 
spiritual  beings  are  to  take  up  their  abode.  Thus  the  idols 
of  barbarians,  as  specimens  of  early  stages  of  sculpture, 
have  a  value  in  the  history  of  art  as  well  as  of  religion. 

In  the  ancient  nations  of  Egypt  and  Babylonia  art  had 
already  risen  to  higher  levels.     Indeed  Egyptian  sculpture 


302  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

reached  its  best  in  the  earlier  rather  tlian  the  later  ages,  for 
the  stone  statues  of  the  older  time  stand  and  step  with 
more  free  life  in  their  limbs,  and  the  calm  proud  faces  of 
the  colossal  Thothmes  and  Rameses  j^ortraits  (like  Fig.  19) 
show  the  grandest  ideal  of  an  eastern  despot,  half  tyrant, 
half  deity.  In  the  sculpture  halls  of  the  British  Museum, 
it  is  seen  that  the  early  school  of  Egyptian  sculptors  were 
on  their  way  to  Greek  perfection,  but  they  stopped  short. 
With  trained  mechanical  skill  they  wrought  statues  by  tens 
of  thousands,  hewing  gigantic  figures  of  the  hardest  granite 
and  porphyry  which  amaze  the  modern  stone-cutter,  but 
their  art,  bound  by  tradition,  grew  not  freer  but  more  stiff  and 
formal.  They  might  divide  their  plans  into  measured  squares, 
and  set  out  faces  and  limbs  by  line  and  rule,  but  their 
conventional  forms  seldom  come  up  to  the  Greek  lines  of 
beauty,  and  their  monuments  are  now  prized,  not  as  models 
of  art,  but  as  records  of  old-world  history.  In  the  British 
Museum  also,  the  alabaster  bas-reliefs  that  adorned  the 
palace-courts  of  Nineveh  give  a  wonderfully  clear  idea  of 
what  Assyrian  life  was  like,  how  the  king  rode  in  his  chariot, 
or  let  fly  his  arrows  at  the  lion  at  bay,  or  walked  with  the 
state  umbrella  held  over  his  head ;  how  the  soldiers  swam 
the  rivers  on  blown  skins  and  the  storming  party  scaled  the 
fortress,  while  the  archers  shot  down  among  them  from  the 
battlements,  and  the  impaled  captives  hung  in  rows  full  in 
view  outside  the  walls.  But  in  such  scenes  proportion  did 
not  much  matter  if  only  the  meaning  were  conveyed.  It  did 
not  seem  artistically  absurd  to  the  Assyrians  to  make  archers 
so  big  that  two  fill  a  whole  parapet;  nor  did  the  Egyptians 
feel  the  comic  impression  made  on  our  modern  minds  by 
the  gigantic  figure  of  the  king  striding  half  across  the 
battle-field  and  grasping  a  dozen  pigmy  barbarians  at  a 
grip,  to  slash  their  heads  oft"  with  one  sweep  of  his  mighty 


xii-l  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  303 

falchion.  It  was  in  Greece  that  the  rules  of  art  were 
developed  which  reject  the  figures  of  the  older  nations  as 
stiff  in  form  and  unlifelike  in  grouping,  Greek  art  is 
sometimes  written  of  as  though  it  had  itself  begun  in  the 
rudest  stage,  with  clumsy  idols  of  wood  and  clay,  till  by 
eftbrts  of  their  own  surpassing  genius  the  Greek  sculptors 
came  to  hew  in  marble  the  forms  which  are  still  the  wonders 
of  the  world.  But  great  as  Greek  genius  was,  it  never  did 
this.  The  Greek  nations  had  been  for  ages  in  contact  with 
the  older  civilizations  of  the  Mediterranean ;  their  starting- 
point  was  to  learn  what  art  could  do  in  Egypt,  Phoenicia, 
Babylonia,  and  then  their  genius  set  them  free  from  the 
hard  old  conventional  forms,  leading  them  to  model  hfe 
straight  from  nature,  and  even  to  fashion  in  marble  shapes  of 
ideal  strength  and  grace.  The  Egyptian  sculptors  would  not 
spoil  polished  granite  with  paint,  but  many  of  their  statues 
were  coloured,  and  there  are  traces  of  paint  left  on  the 
Assyrian  sculptures  and  on  Greek  statues,  so  that  we  are 
apt  to  have  a  wrong  idea  of  a  Greek  temple,  as  though  its 
marble  gods  and  goddesses  used  to  be  of  the  glaring  white- 
ness of  a  modern  sculpture-gallery.  The  Greek  terra  cotta 
statuettes  in  the  British  Museum  are  models  of  antique 
female  grace  in  form  and  costume,  only  wanting  the  lost 
colour  restored  to  make  them  the  prettiest  things  in  the 
world. 

In  colour-drawing,  or  painting,  the  Egyptian  wall-paint- 
ings show  a  style  half-way  between  the  lowest  and  the 
highest.  Here  the  scenes  of  old  Egyptian  life  are  caught 
at  their  characteristic  moments,  the  shoemaker  is  seen 
drawing  his  thread,  the  fowler  throwing  at  the  ducks,  the 
lords  and  ladies  feasting  and  the  flute-players  and  tumblers 
performing  before  them.  Yet  with  all  their  clever  expres- 
siveness, the  Egyptian  paintings  have  not  quite  left  behind 


304  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  savage  stage  of  art.  In  fact  they  are  still  picture- 
writings  rather  than  pictures,  repeating  rows  of  figures  with 
heads,  legs,  and  arms  drawn  to  pattern,  and  coloured  in 
childish  daubs  of  colour— hair  all  black,  skin  all  red-brown, 
clothing  white,  and  so  on.  The  change  from  these  to  the 
Greek  paintings  is  surprising;  now  we  have  no  more  rows 
of  man-patterns,  but  grouped  studies  of  real  men.  The  best 
works  of  the  Greek  painters  are  only  known  to  moderns  by 
the  admiring  descriptions  of  the  ancients,  but  more  ordi- 
nary specimens  which  have  been  preserved  give  an  idea 
what  the  paintings  of  Zeuxis  and  Apelles  may  have  been. 
The  tourist  visiting  for  the  first  time  the  museum  of  Naples 
comes  with  a  shock  of  surprise  in  face  of  Alexander  of 
Athens'  picture  of  the  goddesses  at  play,  the  boldly  drawn 
frescos  of  scenes  from  the  Iliad,  and  the  groups  of  dancers 
elegant  in  drawing  and  colouring.  Most  of  these  pictures 
from  Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  were  done  by  mere  house 
decorators,  but  these  tenth-rate  Greek  painters  had  the 
traditions  of  the  great  classic  school,  and  they  show  plainly 
that  from  the  same  source  we  also  have  inherited  the  art  of 
design.  Modern  European  painting  comes  in  two  ways  from 
ancient  art.  On  the  one  hand,  Greek  painting  spread  over 
"the  Roman  Empire  and  into  the  East,  and  for  ages  found 
its  chief  home  in  the  Christian  art  of  Constantinople,  whence 
arose  the  Byzantine  style,  often  called  pre-Raffaelite,  which 
though  wanting  in  the  older  freedom  of  classic  Athens, 
was  expressive  and  rich  in  colour.  On  the  other  hand, 
when  in  the  fifteenth  century  the  knowledge  of  classic 
art  and  thought  revived  in  Europe,  the  stiff  jjictures  of 
saints  and  martyrs  gave  place  to  more  natural  and  graceful 
forms,  and  modern  j^ainting  arose  under  Raffaelle  and 
Michael  Angelo,  Titian  and  Murillo,  in  whom  the  two 
streams   from   the    fountain-head    of    Greek    art,  so    long 


XII.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  305 

separated,  joined  again.  The  ancients  mostly  painted  on 
walls  like  the  present  fresco-painting,  or  on  waxed  wooden 
panels ;  they  did  not  know  the  use  of  oil  to  mix  the  ground 
colours  with.  This  is  just  mentioned  in  the  tenth  century, 
so  that  the  story  of  the  brothers  Van  Eyck  inventing  oil- 
painting  in  the  fifteenth  century  is  not  quite  true.  But  they 
turned  it  to  practical  use,  and  from  their  time  painters 
brought  the  substance  and  play  of  colour  to  a  perfection 
which  there  is  no  reason  to  suppose  the  ancients  ever 
approached.  In  modern  times  water-colour  painting,  used 
by  the  old  masters  for  light  sketches  and  studies,  has 
also  become  an  art  of  itself,  especially  in  England.  One 
branch  of  painting  in  which  the  moderns  unquestionably 
surpass  the  ancients  is  landscape.  Of  old,  however  admi- 
rably the  figures  might  be  drawn,  the  hard  conventional 
mountains,  forests,  and  houses  behind  were  still  in  the  picture-- 
writing  stage,  they  rather  stood  as  signs  of  the  world  outside 
than  depicted  it  as  it  is.  But  now  the  artist's  eyes  arc  turned 
on  nature,  which  he  renders  with  a  truthfulness  unknown  to 
the  old  masters  who  first  gave  living  form  to  gods  and  heroes, 
apostles  and  martyrs. 

Something  has  now  to  be  said  of  games,  for  play  is  one 
of  the  arts  of  pleasure.  It  is  doing  for  the  sake  of  doing, 
not  for  what  is  done.  One  class  of  games  is  spontaneous 
everywhere,  the  sports  in  which  children  imitate  the  life 
they  will  afterwards  have  to  act  in  earnest.  Eskimo 
children  play  at  building  snow  huts,  and  their  mothers 
provide  them  with  a  tiny  oil-lamp  with  a  bit  of  wick  to  set 
burning  inside.  Among  the  savages  whose  custom  it  is  to 
carry  off  their  wives  by  force  from  neighbouring  tribes, 
the  children  play  at  the  game  of  wife-catching,  just  as 
with  us  children  play  at  weddings  with  a  clergyman  and 
bridesmaids.      All  through  civilization,   toy  weapons  and 


3o5  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [cHAP. 

implements  furnish  children  at  once  play  and  education  ; 
the  North  American  warrior  made  his  Loy  a  little  bow  and 
arrow  as  soon  as  he  could  draw  it,  and  the  young  South 
Sea  Islander  learnt  by  throwing  a  reed  at  a  rolling  ring  how 
in  after-life  to  hurl  his  spear.  It  is  curious  to  see  that 
when  growing  civilization  has  cast  aside  the  practical  use 
of  some  ancient  contrivance,  it  may  still  survive  as  a  toy, 
as  where  Swiss  children  to  this  day  play  at  making  fire  by 
the  old-world  plan  of  drilling  one  piece  of  wood  into 
another;  and  in  our  country  lanes  the  children  play  with 
bows  and  arrows  and  slings,  the  serious  weapons  of  their 
forefathers. 

It  is  not  quite  easy  to  say  whether  man  in  a  low  savage 
state  ever  goes  beyond  these  practical  sports,  and  invents 
games  of  mere  play.  But  higher  up  in  civilization,  such 
games  are  known  from  very  ancient  times.  A  trifling  game, 
if  it  exactly  takes  hold  of  the  playful  mind,  may  last  on  in 
the  world  almost  for  ever.  The  ancient  Egyptians,  as  their 
old  i^aintings  show,  used  to  play  our  childish  game  of  hot- 
cockles,  where  the  blind-man  Avho  stoops  down  has  to 
guess  who  thumped  him  on  the  back.  These  Egyp- 
tians played  also  the  game  of  guessing  the  sum  of  the 
fingers  held  up  by  the  two  players,  which  is  still  popular  in 
China,  and  in  Italy,  where  one  hears  it  half  the  night 
through  with  shouts  of  "three!"  "seven!"  "five!" 
*'  mora  ! " ;  it  is  a  pity  we  have  not  this  as  a  children's 
game  in  England,  for  it  trains  a  sharp  eye  and  a  quick 
hand.  While  some  of  our  games,  such  as  hoops  and 
whipping-tops,  have  gone  on  in  the  Old  World  for  thousands 
of  years,  others  are  modern  importations ;  thus  it  was  only 
about  Stuart  times  that  English  children  learnt  from  the 
Chinese,  or  some  other  nation  in  the  far  East,  the  art  of 
flying  kites.     Or  modern  sports  may  be  late  improvements 


j:ii.]  ARTS  OF  PLEASURE.  307 

on  old  ones ;  the  split  shank-bones  fastened  under  the 
shoes  for  going  on  the  ice  delighted  the  London  'prentices 
for  centuries  before  they  were  displaced  by  steel  skates. 
How  a  game  may  sometimes  go  on  for  ages  unchanged, 
and  then  suddenly  turn  into  a  higher  form,  is  curiously  seen 
in  the  game  of  ball.  The  ancients  tossed  and  caught  balls 
like  children  now,  and  a  famous  Greek  and  Roman  lad's 
game  was  "common  ball,"  where  there  were  two  sides,  and 
each  tried  to  get  the  ball  and  throw  it  to  the  opposite  goal. 
This  is  still  played  in  a  few  country-places  in  England ;  its 
proper  name  is  "hurling,''  and  football  with  the  great 
leather  ball  is  a  variety  of  it.  The  ancients  never  seem  to 
have  used  a  stick  or  bat  in  their  ball-play.  But  some  1,000 
or  1,500  years  ago  the  Persians  began  to  play  ball  on  horse- 
back, which  of  course  could  only  be  done  with  a  long  stick, 
mallet,  or  racket ;  in  this  way  there  came  into  existence  the 
fine  sport  of  chaugan,  which  has  lasted  ever  since  in  the 
East,  and  lately  established  itself  in  England  under  the 
name  of  polo.  When  once  the  club  or  racket  had  been  in- 
vented for  horseback,  it  was  easy  to  use  it  on  foot,  and  thus 
in  the  middle  ages  there  began  the  whole  set  of  games  in 
which  balls  are  hit  with  bats,  such  as  pall-mall  and  croquet, 
tennis,  hockey  and  golf,  rounders  and  cricket. 

Indoor  games,  too,  have  their  curious  history.  Throwing 
lots  or  dice  is  far  too  ancient  for  any  record  to  remain  of 
its  beginning,  and  the  very  draught-boards  and  men  which 
the  old  Egyptians  used  to  play  on  are  still  to  be  seen.  The 
Greeks  and  Romans  were  draught-players,  but  their  games 
were  not  like  our  modern  game  of  draughts.  On  the  other 
hand  our  merells  or  morris  belongs  to  an  old  classical  group 
of  games,  and  Ovid  alludes  to  the  childish  game  of  tit-tat-to. 
These  games  are  played  in  China  as  well,  and  it  is  not  known 
at  which  end  of  the  earth  they  were  first  devised.  The  great 


3o8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  .  [chap.  xil. 

invention  in  intellectual  games  may  have  been  made  a 
thousand  years  or  so  ago,  when  some  Hindu,  whose  name 
is  lost,  set  to  work  upon  the  old  draught-board  and  men, 
and  developed  out  of  them  a  war-game,  where  on  each  side 
a  king  and  his  general,  with  elephants,  chariots,  and  cavalry, 
and  the  foot-soldiers  in  front,  met  in  battle  array.  This  was 
the  earliest  chess,  which  with  some  little  change  passed  into 
the  modern  European  chess  that  still  holds  pre-eminence 
among  sports,  taxing  the  mind  to  its  utmost  stretch  of  fore- 
sight and  combination.  Our  modern  draughts  is  a  sort 
of  simplified  chess,  where  the  pieces  are  all  pawns  till  they 
get  across  the  board  and  become  queens.  The  story  in 
the  history-books  that  cards  were  invented  in  France  to 
amuse  Charles  VI.  is  a  fiction,  for  they  were  known  in  the 
East  centuries  earlier.  But  at  any  rate  the  Europeans  make 
with  them  combinations  of  skill  and  chance  which  excel 
anything  contrived  by  their  Asiatic  inventors.  Games  which 
exercise  either  body  or  mind  have  been  of  high  value  in 
civilization  as  trainers  of  man's  faculties.  Games  of  pure 
chance  played  for  money  stand  on  quite  a  different  footing ; 
they  have  been  from  the  first  a  delusion  and  a  curse.  In 
our  own  time,  there  is  perhaps  no  more  pitiable  sign  of  the 
slowness  with  which  scientific  ideas  spread,  than  to  hear 
the  well-dressed  crowds  round  the  gaming-table  at  Monaco 
talking  about  runs  of  luck,  and  fancying  that  it  makes  a 
difference  whether  one  backs  the  black  or  the  red.  This 
goes  on  although  schoolboys  are  now  taught  the  real 
doctrine  of  chances,  and  how  to  reckon  the  fixed  percentage 
of  each  week's  stakes  that  will  be  raked  in  by  the  croupier, 
and  not  come  back. 


CHAPTER   XIII. 

SCIENCE. 

Science,  309 — Counting  and  Arithmetic,  310 — Measuring  and  Weigh- 
ing, 316 — Geometry,  318 — Algebra,  322 — Physics,  323 — Chemistry, 
328 — Biology,  329 — Astronomy,  332 — Geography  and  Geology,  335 
— Methods  of  Reasoning,  336 — Magic,  338. 

Science  is  exact,  regular,  arranged  knowledge.  Of  com- 
mon knowledge  savages  and  barbarians  have  a  vast  deal, 
indeed  the  struggle  of  life  could  not  be  carried  on  without 
it.  The  rude  man  knows  much  of  the  properties  of  matter, 
how  fire  burns  and  water  soaks,  the  heavy  sinks  and  the 
light  floats,  what  stone  will  serve  for  the  hatchet  and  what 
wood  for  its  handle,  which  plants  are  food  and  which  are 
poison,  what  are  the  habits  of  the  animals  that  he  hunts  or 
that  may  fall  upon  him.  He  has  notions  how  to  cure,  and 
much  better  notions  how  to  kill.  In  a  rude  way  he  is  a 
physicist  in  making  fire,  a  chemist  in  cooking,  a  surgeon  in 
binding  up  wounds,  a  geographer  in  knowing  his  rivers  and 
mountains,  a  mathematician  in  counting  on  his  fingers.  All 
this  is  knowledge,  and  it  was  on  these  foundations  that 
science  proper  began  to  be  built  up,  when  the  art  of  writing 
had  come  in  and  society  had  entered  on  the  civilized  stage. 
We  have  to  trace  here  in  outline  the  rise  and  progress  of 


3IO  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

science.  And  as  it  has  been  especially  through  counting 
and  measuring  that  scientific  methods  have  come  into  use, 
the  first  thing  to  do  is  to  examine  how  men  learnt  to  count 
and  measure. 

Even  those  who  cannot  talk  can  count,  as  was  well  shown 
by  the  deaf-and-dumb  lad  Massieu,  who  wrote  down  among 
the  recollections  of  his  childhood  before  the  Abbe  Sicard 
educated  him,  "  I  knew  the  numbers  before  my  instruction  ; 
my  fingers  had  taught  me  them."  We  ourselves  as  children 
began  arithmetic  on  our  fingers  and  now  and  then  take  to 
them  still,  so  that  there  is  no  difficulty  in  understanding 
how  a  savage  whose  language  has  no  word  for  a  number 
above  three  will  manage  to  reckon  perhaps  a  list  of 
fifteen  killed  and  wounded,  how  he  will  check  off  one  finger 
for  each  man,  and  at  last  hold  up  his  hand  three  times  to 
show  the  result.  The  next  question  is,  how  numeral  words 
came  to  be  invented.  This  is  answered  by  many  languages, 
which  show  in  the  plainest  way  how  counting  on  fingers  and 
toes  led  to  making  numerals.  When  a  Zulu  wants  to  ex- 
press the  number  six,  he  says  iatisitupa,  which  means  "  taking 
the  thumb  ;  "  this  signifies  that  the  speaker  has  counted  all 
the  fingers  of  his  left  hand,  and  begun  with  the  thumb  of 
the  right.  When  he  comes  to  seven,  for  instance  when  he 
has  to  express  that  his  master  bought  seven  oxen,  he  will 
say  u  ko7Jibile,  that  is,  "  he  pointed  " ;  this  signifies  that  in 
counting  he  had  come  to  the  pointing-finger  or  forefinger. 
In  this  way  the  words  "hand,"  "foot,"  "man,"  have  in 
various  parts  of  the  world  become  numerals.  An  example 
how  they  are  worked  may  be  taken  from  the  language  of  the 
Tamanacs  of  the  Orinoco ;  here  the  term  for  five  means 
"whole  hand,"  six  is  "one  of  the  other  hand,"  and  so  on  up 
to  ten  or  "both  hands  "  ;  then  "  one  to  the  foot  "  is  eleven, 
and  so  on  to  "whole  foot"  or  fifteen,  "one  to  the  other 


xiii.J  SCIENCE.  311 

foot "  or  sixteen,  and  thence  to  "  one  man,"  which  signifies 
twenty,  "  one  to  the  hands  of  the  next  man  "  being  twenty- 
one,  and  the  counting  going  on  in  the  same  way  to  "two 
men  "  which  stands  for  forty,  &.c.  &:c.  Now  this  state  of 
things  teaches  a  truth  which  has  sometimes  been  denied, 
that  the  lower  races  of  men  have,  Uke  ourselves,  the  faculty 
of  progress  or  self-miprovement.  It  is  evident  that  there 
was  a  time  when  the  ancestors  of  these  people  had  in  their 
languages  no  word  for  fifteen  or  sixteen,  nor  even  for  five  or 
six,  for  if  they  had  they  could  not  have  been  so  stupid  as 
to  change  them  for  their  present  clumsy  phrases  about  hands 
and  feet  and  men.  We  see  back  to  the  time  when,  having 
no  means  of  reckoning  such  numbers  except  on  their  fingers 
and  toes,  they  found  they  had  only  to  describe  in  words 
what  they  were  doing,  and  such  a  phrase  as  "  both  hands  " 
would  serve  them  as  a  numeral  for  ten.  Then  they  would 
keep  up  these  as  numerals  after  their  original  sense  was  lost, 
like  the  Vei  negros  who  called  the  number  twenty  vioha?ide, 
but  had  forgotten  that  this  must  have  meant  "a  person 
finished."  The  languages  of  nations  long  civilized  seldom 
show  such  plain  meaning  in  their  numerals,  perhaps  because 
they  are  so  ancient  and  have  undergone  such  change.  But 
all  through  the  languages  of  the  world,  savage  or  civilized, 
with  exceptions  too  slight  to  notice  here,  there  is  ineffaceable 
proof  that  the  numerals  arose  out  of  the  primitive  counting 
on  fingers  and  toes.  This  always  led  men  to  reckon  by  fives, 
tens,  and  twenties,  and  so  they  reckon  still.  The  quinary 
kind  of  counting  (by  fives)  is  that  of  tribes  like  the  negros 
of  Senegal,  who  count  one,  two,  three,  four,  five,  five-one, 
five-two,  &c.  ;  we  never  count  numbers  thus  in  words,  but 
we  write  them  so  in  the  PvOman  numerals.  The  decimal 
counting  (by  tens)  is  the  most  usual  in  the  world,  and  our 
ordinary  counting  is  done  by  it,  thus  eighty-three  is  "  eight 


312  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

tens  and  three."  The  vigesimal  counting  (by  twenties) 
which  is  the  regular  mode  in  many  languages,  has  its  traces 
left  in  the  midst  of  the  decimal  counting  of  civilized  Europe, 
as  in  English  "  fourscore  and  three,"  French  "  quatre-vingt 
trois,"  that  is  '^four  twenties  and  three."  Thus  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  the  modern  world  has  inherited  direct  from 
primitive  man  his  earliest  arithmetic  worked  on  nature's 
counting-board — the  hands  and  feet.  This  also  explains 
(p.  1 8)  why  the  civilized  world  uses  a  numeral  system  based 
on  the  inconvenient  number  ten,  which  will  not  divide 
either  by  three  or  four.  Were  we  starting  our  arithmetic 
afresh,  we  should  more  likely  base  it  on  the  duodecimal 
notation,  and  use  dozens  and  grosses  instead  of  tens  and 
hundreds. 

To  have  named  the  numbers  was  a  great  step,  but  words 
hardly  serve  beyond  the  very  simplest  arithmetic,  as  any  one 
may  satisfy  himself  by  trying  to  multiply  "  seven  thousand 
eight  hundred  and  three  "  by  "  two  hundred  and  seventeen  '» 
in  words,  without  helping  himself  by  turning  them  in 
thought  into  figures.  How  did  men  come  to  the  use  of 
numeral  figures  ?  To  this  question  the  beginning  of  an 
answer  may  be  had  from  barbaric  picture-writing,  as  where  a 
North  American  warrior  will  make  four  little  marks  ////  to 
show  that  he  has  taken  four  scalps.  This  is  very  well  for 
the  small  numbers,  but  becomes  clumsy  for  higher  ones.  So 
already  when  writing  was  in  its  infancy,  the  ancients  had 
fallen  upon  the  device  of  making  special  marks  for  their 
fives,  tens,  hundreds,  &lc.,  leaving  the  simple  strokes  to  be 
used  only  for  the  few  units  over.  This  is  well  seen  in  Fig.  76 
which  shows  how  numeration  was  worked  in  ancient  Egypt 
and  Assyria.  Nor  has  this  old  method  died  out  in  the  world, 
for  the  Roman  numerals  I.,  V.,  X.,  L.,  still  in  common  use 
among  ourselves,  are  arranged  on  much  the  same  principle. 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  313 

Another  device,  which  arose  out  of  the  alphabet,  was  to 
take  the  letters  in  their  order  to  stand  for  numbers.  Thus 
the  sections  of  Psalm  cxix.  are  numbered  by  the  letters 
of  the  Hebrew  alphabet,  and  the  books  of  the  Iliad  by  the 
letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet.  By  these  various  plans  the 
arithmetic  of  tlie  ancient  civilized  nations  made  great 
progress.  Still  their  numeration  was  very  cumbrous  in  com- 
parison with  that  of  the  modern  world.  Let  us  put  down 
MMDCLXIX.  and  multiply  by  CCCXLVIIL,  or  f^x^'O'  by 

EGYPT. 

1=1        p\  =  io        (2.=^  100 

Gcaa  (3(s  nnn  1 1 1 

^    ^^111  =  4359 

ASSYRIA. 

T  =  i        <=io  I*~^^  '°°        >  I  *~  ^'^  ^  '°°)  ^^  1000 

Fig.  76. — Ancient  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  numeration. 

t'/a't/,  and  a  kw  minutes'  trial  will  not  fail  to  convince  us  of 
the  superiority  of  our  ciphers. 

To  understand  how  the  art  of  ciphering  came  to  be  in- 
vented, it  is  necessary  to  go  back  to  a  ruder  state  of  things. 
In  Africa,  negro  traders  may  be  seen  at  market  reckoning 
with  pebbles,  and  when  they  come  to  five,  putting  them 
aside  in  a  little  heap  In  the  South  Sea  Islands  it  has 
been  noticed  that  people  reckoning,  when  they  came  to  ten, 
would  not  put  aside  a  henp  of  ten  things,  but  only  a  single 
bit  of  coco-nut  stalk  to  stand  for  ten,  and  then  a  bigger 
piece  when  they  wanted  to  represent  ten  tens  or  a  hundred. 
Now  to  us  it  is  plain  that  this  use  of  different  kinds  of 


314  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

markers  is  unnecessary,  but  all  that  the  reckoner  with  little 
stones  or  beans  has  to  do,  is  to  keep  separate  his  unit-heap, 
his    ten-heap,  his  hundred-heap,   &c.      This  use   of   such 
things  as  pebbles    for   "  counters,"   which   still  survives  in 
England  among  the  ignorant,  was  so  common  in  the  ancient 
world,  that  the  Greek  word   for  reckoning   was  fsephizeiii, 
from  psephos,  a  pebble,  and  the  corresponding  Latin  word 
was  calculare  from  calculus,  a  pebble,  so  that  our  word  calcu- 
late is  a  relic  of  very  early  arithmetic.     Now  to  work  such 
pebble-counting  in  an  orderly  rnanner,  what  is  wanted  is 
some    kind   of   abacus   or   counting-board   with    divisions. 
These  have  been  made  in  various  forms,   as   the  Roman 
abacus  with  lines  of  holes  for  knobs  or  pegs,  or  the  Chinese 
swan-pan  with  balls  strung  on  wires,   on  which  the  native 
calculators  in  the  merchants'  counting-houses  reckon  with  a 
speed  and  exactness  that  fairly  beats  the   European  clerk 
with  his  pencil  and  paper.     It  may  have  been  from  China 
that  the  Russian  traders  borrowed  the  ball-frame  on  which 
they  also  do  their  accounts,  and  it  is  said  that  a  Frenchman 
noticing  it  in  Russia  at  the  time  of  Napoleon's  invasion 
was  struck  with  the   idea  that  it   would   serve  perfect'y  to 
teach    little    children    arithmetic ;    so    he    introduced    it  in 
France,  and  thence  it  found  its  way  into   English   infants' 
schools.     Now  whatever  sort  of  abacus  is  used,  its  principle 
is  always  the  same,  to  divide  the  board  or  tray  into  columns, 
so  that  in  one  column   the  stones,  beans,  pegs,  or  balls, 
stand  for  units,  in  the  next  column  -they  are  tens,  in  the 
next  hundreds,  and  so  on,  Fig.   77.      Here  the  tliree  stones 
in  the  right-hand  column  stand  for  3,  the  nine  in  the  next 
column   for  90,  the  one  in   the  fourth  column   for  1,000 
and  so  on.     The  next  improvement  was  to  get  rid  of  the 
troublesome  stones  or  beans,  and  write  down  numbers  in 
the   columns,    as   is  here  shown  with    Greek  and  Roman 


xiir.] 


SCIENCE. 


315 


numerals.  But  now  the  calculator  could  do  without  the 
clumsy  board,  and  had  only  to  rule  lines  on  his  paper,  to 
make  columns  for  units,  tens,  hundreds,  &c.  The  reader 
should  notice  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  the  principle  of  the 
abacus  that  each  column  should  stand  for  ten  times  the  one 
next  it.  It  may  be  twelve  or  twenty  or  any  other  number  of 
times,  and  in  fact  the  columns  in  our  account-books  for 
^  s.  d.  or  cwts.  qrs.  lbs.,  are  surviving  representatives  of 
the  old  method  of  the  abacus.  Such  reckoning  had  still 
the  defect  that  the  numbers  could  not  be  taken  out  of 
the   columns,  for  even  when   each   number  from   one   to 


* 

« 

* 

0 

B 

A 

A 

0 

r 

It 

W 

I 

IX 

in 

2 

4 

1 

0 

3 

Fig.  77. — Mode  of  calculation  by  counters  and  by  figures  on  Abacus. 

nine  has  a  single  figure  to  stand  for  it,  there  would 
still  be  here  and  there  an  empty  columi:^  (as  is  purposely 
left  in  Fig.  77)  which  would  throw  the  whole  into  con- 
fusion. To  us  now  it  seems  a  very  simple  thing  to  put 
a  sign  to  show  an  empty  colunm,  as  we  have  learned  to  do 
with  the  zero  or  o,  so  that  the  number  expressed  in  the 
picture  of  the  abacus  can  be  written  down  without  any 
columns,  241093.  This  invention  of  a  sign  for  nothing, 
was  practically  one  of  the  greatest  moves  ever  made  in 
science.  It  is  the  use  of  the  zero  which  makes  the  dif- 
ference between  the  old  arithmetic  and  our  easy  ciphering. 


3i6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap/ 

We  give  the  credit  of  the  invention  to  the  Arabs  by  using 
the  term  Arabic  numerals,  while  the  Arabs  call  them  Indian, 
and  there  is  truth  in  both  acknowledgments  of  the  nations 
having  been  scholars  in  arithmetic  one  to  the  other.  But 
this  does  not  go  to  the  root  of  the  matter,  and  it  is  still 
unsettled  whether  ciphering  was  first  devised  in  Asia,  or 
may  be  traced  further  back  in  Europe  to  the  arithmeticians 
of  the  school  of  Pythagoras.  As  to  the  main  point,  how- 
ever, there  is  no  doubt,  that  modern  arithmetic  comes  out  of 
ancient  counting  on  the  columns  of  the  abacus,  improved  by 
writing  a  dot  or  a  round  o  to  show  the  empty  column, 
and  by  this  means  young  children  now  work  calculations 
which  would  have  been  serious  labour  to  the  arithmeticians 
of  the  ancient  world. 

Next  as  to  the  art  of  measuring.  Here  it  may  be  fairly 
guessed  that  man  first  measured,  as  he  first  counted,  on 
his  own  body.  When  barbarians  tried  by  finger-breadths 
how  much  one  spear  was  longer  than  another,  or  when  in 
building  huts  they  saw  how  to  put  one  foot  before  the 
other  to  get  the  distance  right  between  two  stakes,  they 
had  brought  mensuration  to  its  first  stage.  We  sometimes 
use  this  method  still  for  rough  work,  as  in  taking  a  horse's 
height  by  hands,  or  stepping  out  the  size  of  a  carpet. 
If  care  is  taken  t(^  choose  men  of  average  size  as  measurers, 
some  approach  may  be  made  to  fair  measurement  in  this 
way.  That  it  was  the  primitive  way  can  hardly  be  doubted, 
for  civilized  nations  who  have  more  exact  means  still  use 
the  names  of  the  body-measures.  Besides  the  cubit,  hand, 
foot,  span,  nail,  already  mentioned  in  p.  17,  we  have  in 
English  the  ell,  (of  which  the  early  meaning  of  arm  or  fore- 
arm is  seen  in  ^/-bow,  the  arm-bend),  also  the  fathom  or 
cord  stretched  by  the  outspread  arms  in  sailors'  fashion,  and 
the  pace  or  double  step  (Latin  passui)  of  which  a  thousand 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  317 

(rnille)  made  the  mile.  But  though  these  names  keep  up  the 
recollection  of  early  measurement  by  men's  limbs,  they  are 
now  only  used  as  convenient  names  for  standard  measures 
which  they  happen  to  come  tolerably  near  to,  as  for  instance 
one  may  go  a  long  way  to  find  a  man's  foot  a  foot  long  by 
the  rule.  Our  modern  measurements  are  made  by  standard 
lengths,  which  we  have  inherited  with  more  or  less  change 
from  the  ancients.  It  was  a  great  step  in  civilization  when 
nations  such  as  the  Egyptians  and  Babylonians  made  pieces 
of  wood  or  metal  of  exact  lengths  to  serve  as  standards.  The 
Egyptian  cubit-rules  with  their  divisions  may  still  be  seen, 
and  the  King's  Chamber  in  the  Great  Pyramid  measures  very 
exactly  20  cubits  by  10,  the  cubit  being  20-63  of  our  inches. 
Our  foot  has  scarcely  altered  for  some  centuries,  and  is  not 
very  different  from  the  ancient  Greek  and  Roman  feet. 
The  French  at  the  first  Revolution  made  a  bold  attempt  to 
cast  off  the  old  traditional  standards  and  go  straight  to 
nature,  so  they  established  the  metre,  which  was  to  be  a 
ten-millionth  of  the  distance  from  the  pole  to  the  equator. 
The  calculation  however  proved  inexact,  so  that  the  metre  is 
now  really  a  standard  measure  of  the  old  sort,  but  so  great  is 
the  convenience  of  using  the  same  measures,  that  the  metre 
and  its  fractions  are  coming  more  and  more  into  use  for 
scientific  work  all  over  the  world.  The  use  of  scales  and 
weights,  and  of  wet  and  dry  measures,  had  already  begun 
among  the  civilized  nations  in  the  earliest  known  times. 
Our  modern  standards  can  even  to  some  extent  be  traced 
back  to  those  of  the  old  world,  as  for  instance  the  pound 
and  ounce,  gallon  and  pint,  come  from  the  ancient  Roman 
weights  and  measures. 

From  measuring  feet  in  length,  men  would  soon  come  to 
reckoning  the  contents,  say  of  an  oblong  floor,  in  square  feet. 
But  to  calculate  the  contents  of  less  simple  figures  required 


3i8 


ANTHROPOLOGY. 


[chap. 


more  difificult  geometrical  rules.  The  Greeks  acknowledged 
the  Egyptians  as  having  invented  geometry,  that  is,  "  land- 
measuring,"  and  there  may  be  truth  in  the  old  story  that 
the  art  was  invented  in  order  to  parcel  out  the  plots  of 
fertile  mud  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  There  is  in  the 
British  Museum  an  ancient  Egyptian  manual  of  mensuration 
(the  Rhind  papyrus),  one  of  the  oldest  books  in  the  world, 


Fig.    78. — Rudimentary  practical  Geometry,     i,  scalene  triangle  ;  2,   folded  right 
angle  ;  3,  folded  triangle  ;  4,  rectangle  f  jlded  in  circle. 

originally  written  more  than  i,ooo  years  before  Euklid's  time, 
and  which  shows  what  the  Egyptians  then  knew  and  did  not 
know  about  geometry.  From  its  figures  and  examples  it 
appears  that  they  used  square  measure,  but  reckoned  it 
roughly  ;  for  instance,  to  get  the  area  of  the  triangular  field 
ABC  Fig.  78  (i)  they  multiplied  half  ac  by  ab,  which  would 
only  be  correct  when  bag   is  a   right   angle.      When  the 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  319 

Egyptians  wanted  the  area  of  a  circular  field,  they  sub- 
tracted one-ninth  from  the  diameter  and  squared ;  thus  if 
the  diameter  were  9  perches,  they  estimated  that  the  circle 
contained  64  square  perches,  which  the  reader  will  find 
on  trial  is  a  good  approximation.  All  this  was  admirable 
for  the  beginnings  of  geometry,  and  the  record  may  well 
be  believed  that  Greek  philosophers  such  as  Thales  and 
Pythagoras,  when  they  came  to  Egypt,  gained  wisdom 
from  the  geometer-priests  of  the  land.  But  these  Egyptian 
mathematicians,  being  a  priestly  order,  had  come  to  regard 
their  rules  as  sacred,  and  therefore  not  to  be  improved  on, 
while  their  Greek  disciples,  bound  by  no  such  scientific 
orthodoxy,  were  free  to  go  on  further  to  more  perfect 
methods.  Greek  geometry  thus  reached  results  which  have 
come  down  to  us  in  the  great  work  of  Euklid,  who  used  the 
theorems  known  to  his  predecessors,  adding  new  ones  and 
proving  the  whole  in  a  logical  series.  It  must  be  clearly 
understood  that  elementary  geometry  was  not  actually  in- 
vented by  means  of  definitions,  axioms,  and  demonstrations 
like  Euklid's.  Its  beginnings  really  arose  out  of  the  daily 
practical  work  of  land-measurers,  masons,  carpenters,  tailors. 
This  may  be  seen  in  the  geometrical  rules  of  the  altar-builders 
of  ancient  India,  which  do  not  tell  the  bricklayer  to  draw 
a  plan  of  such  and  such  lines,  but  to  set  up  poles  at  certain 
distances,  and  stretch  cords  between  them.  It  is  instructive 
to  see  that  our  term  s/raig/it  line  still  shov/s  traces  of  such 
an  early  practical  meanirg ;  line  is  linen  thread,  and  straight 
is  the  participle  of  the  old  verb  to  stretch.  If  we  stretch  a 
thread  tight  between  two  pegs,  we  see  that  the  stretched 
thread  must  be  the  shortest  possible  ;  which  suggests  how 
the  straight  line  came  to  be  defined  as  the  shortest  distance 
between  two  points.  Also,  every  carpenter  knows  the 
nature  of  a  right  angle,  and  he  is  accustomed  to  parallel 


320  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

lines,  or  such  as  keep  the  same  distance  from  one  another. 
To  the  tailor,  the  right  angle  presents  itself  in  another  way. 
Suppose  him  cutting  a  doubled  piece  of  cloth  to  open  out 
into  the  gore  or  wedge-shaped  piece  bag  in  Fig.  78  (2).  He 
must  cut  ADB  a  right  angle,  or  his  piece  when  he  opens  it  will 
have  a  projection  or  a  recess,  as  seen  in  the  figure.  When 
he  has  cut  it  right,  so  that  edc  opens  in  a  straight  line,  then 
he  cannot  but  see  that  the  sides  ab,  ac,  and  the  angles 
ABC,  ACB  must  exactly  match,  having  in  fact  been  cut  out 
on  one  another.  Thus  he  arrives,  by  what  may  be  called 
tailor's  geometry,  at  the  result  of  Euklid  I.  5,  which  now 
often  goes  by  the  name  of  the  "  asses'  bridge."  Such  easy 
properties  of  figures  must  have  been  practically  known  very 
early.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  ancients  were  long 
ignorant  of  some  of  the  problems  which  now  belong  to 
elementary  teaching.  Thus  it  has  just  been  mentioned  how 
the  Egyptian  land-surveyors  failed  to  make  out  an  exact 
rule  to  measure  a  triangular  field.  Yet  had  it  occurred 
to  them  to  cut  out  the  diagram  of  a  triangle  from  a  sheet  of 
papyrus,  as  we  may  do  with  the  triangle  abc  in  Fig.  78  (3), 
and  double  it  up  as  shown  in  the  figure,  then  they  would  have 
found  that  it  folds  into  the  rectangle  efhg,  and,  therefore,  its 
area  is  the  product  of  the  height  by  half  the  base.  It  would 
be  seen  that  this  is  no  accident,  but  a  property  of  all 
triangles,  while  at  the  same  time  it  would  appear  that  the 
three  angles  at  a,  b,  c,  all  folding  together  at  d,  make  up  two 
right  angles.  Though  the  more  ancient  Egyptian  geometers 
do -not  seem  to  have  got  at  either  of  these  properties  of 
the  triangle,  the  Greek  geometers  had  in  some  way  become 
well  aware  of  them  before  Euklid's  time.  The  old  historians 
who  tell  the  origin  of  mathematical  discoveries  do  not 
always  seem  to  have  understood  what  they  were  talking  of. 
Thus  it  is  said  of  Thales  that  he  was  the  first  to  inscribe 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  321 

the  light-angled  triangle  in  the  circle,  and  thereupon  sacri- 
ficed a  bull.  But  a  mathematician  of  such  eminence  could 
hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  what  any  intelligent  carpenter 
has  reason  to  know,  how  an  oblong  board  fits  into  a  circle 
symmetrically  ;  the  problem  of  the  right-angled  triangle  in 
the  semicircle  is  involved  in  this,  as  is  seen  by  (4)  in  the 
present  figure.  Perhaps  the  story  really  meant  that  Thales 
was  the  first  to  work  out  a  strict  geometrical  demonstration 
of  the  problem.  The  tale  is  also  told  of  Pythagoras,  and 
another  version  is  that  he  sacrificed  a  hekatomb  on  discover- 
ing that  the  square  on  the  hypothenuse  of  a  right-angled 
triangle  is  equal  to  the  sum  of  the  squares  on  the  other  two 
sides  (Euklid  I.  47).  The  story  is  not  a  likely  one  of  a 
philosopher  who  forbad  the  sacrifice  of  any  animal.  As  for 
the  proposition,  it  is  one  which  may  present  itself  practically 
to  masons  working  with  square  paving-stones  or  tiles;  thus, 
when  the  base  is  3  tiles  long,  and  the  perpendicular  4, 
the  hypothenuse  will  be  5,  and  the  tiles  which  form  a  square 
on  it  will  just  be  as  many  as  together  form  squares  on  the 
other  two  sides.  Whether  Pythagoras  got  a  hint  from  such 
practical  rules,  or  whether  he  was  led  by  studying  arithmetical 
squares,  at  any  rate  he  may  have  been  the  first  to  establish 
as  a  general  law  this  property  of  the  right-angled  triangle, 
on  which  the  wliole  systems  of  trigonometry  and  analytical 
geometry  depend. 

The  early  history  of  mathematics  seems  so  far  clear,  that 
its  founders  were  the  Egyptians  with  their  practical  survey- 
ing, and  the  Babylonians  whose  skill  in  arithmetic  is  plain 
from  the  tables  of  square  and  cube  numbers  drawn  up  by 
them,  which  are  still  to  be  seen.  Then  the  Greek  philo- 
sophers, beginning  as  disciples  of  these  older  schools,  soon 
left  their  teachers  behind,  and  raised  mathetnatics  to  be, 
as  its  name  implies,  the  "learning"  or  "disciphne"  of  the 


322  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

human  mind  in  strict  and  exact  thought.  In  its  first  stages, 
mathematics  chiefly  consisted  of  arithmetic  and  geometry, 
and  so  had  to  do  with  known  numbers  and  quantities. 
But  in  ancient  times  the  Egyptians  and  Greeks  had 
already  begun  methods  of  deaUng  with  a  number  without  as 
yet  knowing  wliat  it  was,  and  the  Hindu  mathematicians, 
going  further  in  the  same  direction,  introduced  the  method 
now  called  algebra.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  use  of 
letters  as  symbols  in  algebra  was  not  reached  all  at  once 
by  a  happy  thotight,  but  grew  out  of  an  earlier  and  clum- 
sier device.  It  appears  from  a  Sanskrit  book  that  the  venera- 
ble teachers  began  by  expressing  unknown  quantities  by  the 
term  "  so-much-as,"  or  by  the  names  of  colours,  as  "black," 
"  blue,"  "  yellow,"  and  then  the  first  syllables  of  these  words 
came  to  be  used  fur  shortness.  Thus  if  we  had  to  express 
twice  the  square  of  an  unknown  quantity,  and  called  it  "  so 
much  squared  twice,"  and  then  abbreviated  this  to  so  sq  2, 
this  would  be  very  much  as  the  Hindus  did  in  working  out  the 
following  problem,  given  in  Colebrooke's  ZT/W//  ^4'^(^rtf  ; 
"  The  square  root  of  half  the  number  of  a  swarm  of  bees  is 
gone  to  a  shrub  of  jasmin  :  and  so  are  eight-ninths  of  the 
whole  swarm  :  a  female  is  buzzing  to  one  remaining  male, 
that  is  humming  within  a  lotus,  in  which  he  is  confined, 
having  been  allured  to  it  by  its  fragrance  at  night.  vSay,  lovely 
woman,  the  number  of  bees."  This  Hindu  equation  is 
worked  out  clumsily  from  the  want  of  the  convenient  set  of 
signs  =  + — ,  which  were  invented  later  in  Europe,  but  the 
minus  numbers  are  marked,  and  the  solution  is  in  principle  an 
ordinary  quadratic.  The  Arab  mathematicians  learnt  from 
India  this  admirable  method,  and  througli  them  it  became 
known  in  Europe  in  the  middle  ages.  The  Arabic  name 
given  to  it  is  al-jabr  ica-l-ziu/kalm/a/i,  that  is,  "  consolidation 
and  opposition,"  this  meaning  what  is  now  done  by  transposing 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  323 

quantities  on  the  two  sides  of  an  equation  ;  thence  comes  the 
present  word  algebra.  It  was  not  till  about  the  17th  century 
in  Europe  that  the  higher  mathematics  were  thoroughly  estab- 
lished, when  Descartes  worked  into  a  system  the  application 
of  algebra  to  geometry,  and  Galileo's  researches  on  the  path 
of  a  ball  or  flung  stone  brought  in  the  ideas  which  led  up 
to  Newton's  fluxions  and  Leibnitz's  differential  calculus, 
with  the  aid  of  which  mathematics  have  risen  to  their  modern 
range  and  power.  Mathematical  symbols  have  not  lost  the 
traces  of  their  first  beginnings  as  abbreviated  words,  as 
where  ;/  still  stands  for  inimber  and  r  for  radius,  while  V, 
which  is  a  running-hand  r,  does  duty  for  root  {radix),  and 
/,  which  is  an  old-fashioned  s,  stands  for  the  sum  {sumina) 

in  integration. 

Mechanics  and  Physics,  worked  mathematically,  now  form 
the  very  foundation  of  our  knowledge  of  the  universe.  But 
in  the  old  barbaric  life,  men  had  only  rudimentary  notions  of 
them.  The  savage  understands  the  path  of  a  projectile 
well  enough  to  aim  it,  and  how  to  profit  by  momentum 
when,  he  mounts  his  axe  on  a  long  rather  than  a  short 
handle.  But  he  hardly  comes  to  bringing  these  practical 
ideas  to  a  principle  or  law.  Even  the  old  civilized  nations 
of  the  East,  though  they  could  lift  stones  with  the  lever,  set 
their  masonry  upright  with  the  plumb-line,  and  weigh  gold  in 
the  balance,  are  not  known  to  have  come  co  scientific  study 
of  mechanical  laws.  What  makes  this  more  sure  is  that  if 
they  had,  the  Greeks  would  have  learnt  it  of  them,  whereas 
it  is  among  the  Greek  philosophers  that  the  science  is  found 
just  coming  into  existence.  In  Aristotle's  time  they  were 
thinking  about  mechanical  problems,  though  by  no  means 
always  righdy;  it  was  considered  that  a  body  is  drawn 
toward  the  centre  of  the  world,  but  the  greater  its  weight 
the  faster  it   ^\ill  fall.      The  chief  founder  of  mechanical 


324  ANTHROPOLOGY,  [chap. 

science  was  Archimedes,  who  worked  out  from  the  steel- 
yard the  law  of  the  lever,  and  deduced  thence  cases  of  all  the  ' 
particles  of  a  body  balancing  on  a  common  centre,  now 
called  its  centre  of  gravity;  he  even  gave  the  general  theory 
of  floating  bodies,  which  mathematicians  far  on  in  the 
middle  ages  could  hardly  be  brought  to  understand.  In- 
deed, mechanical  science,  after  the  classical  period,  shared 
the  general  fate  of  knowledge  during  the  long  dead  time 
when  so  much  was  forgotten,  and  what  was  left  was  in 
bondage  to  the  theology  of  the  schoolmen.  It  sometimes 
surprises  a  modern  reader  that  the  "  wisdom  of  the  ancients  " 
should  still  now  and  then  be  set  up  as  an  authority  in 
science.  But  the  scholars  of  the  middle  ages,  who  on 
many  scientific  points  knew  less  than  the  ancient  Greeks, 
might  well  look  up  to  them.  It  is  curious  to  look  at  the 
book  of  Gerbert  (Pope  Sylvester  II.)  who  was  a  leading 
mathematician  in  the  tenth  century,  and  who  bungles  like 
an  early  Egyptian  over  the  measurement  of  the  area  of  a 
triangle,  though  the  exact  method  as  stated  by  Euklid  had 
been  well  known  in  classical  times.  Physical  science  might 
almost  have  disappeared  if  it  had  not  been  that  while  the 
ancient  treasure  of  knowledge  was  lost  to  Christendom,  the 
Mohammedan  philosophers  were  its  guardians,  and  even 
added  to  its  store.  For  this  they  have  not  always  had  due 
praise.  A  pretty  story  is  told  of  Galileo  inventing  the  pen- 
dulum, being  led  to  it  by  watching  the  great  hanging  lamp 
in  the  cathedral  of  Pisa  swinging  steadily  to  and  fro  ;  but  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  it  appears  that  six  centuries  earlier  Ebn 
Yunis  and  other  Moorish  astronomers  were  already  using  the 
pendulum  as  a  time-measurer  in  their  observations.  Of  all 
the  services  which  Galileo  did  for  science,  perhaps  the 
greatest  was  his  teaching  clearer  ideas  of  force  and  motion. 
People  had  of  old  times  been   deceived  by  the  evidence  of 


xiii.J  SCIENCE.  525 

their  senses  into  the  beUef  that  the  force  of  a  moving  body 
would  gradually  become  exhausted  and  it  would  stop  of 
itself,  but  this  idea  of  force  was  changed  by  the  new  prin- 
ciple that  force  is  as  much  required  to  stop  a  moving  body  as 
to  set  it  in  motion,  and  that  did  no  opposing  force  retard 
the  arrow  or  the  wheel,  the  one  would  fly  and  the  other  roll 
on  for  ever.  In  that  age  of  mathematics  applied  to  science 
new  discoveries  followed  fast.  If  Archimedes  could  have  come 
to  life  again,  he  would  have  seen  progress  going  on  at  last, 
when  the  pressure  of  the  air  was  weighed  with  Torricelli's 
barometer,  and  Stevin  of  Bruges  made  out  the  principle  of 
the  parallelogram  of  forces.  The  notion  of  an  attractive 
force  had  come  into  the  minds  of  philosophers  by  observing 
how  the  magnet  attracts  iron  at  a  distance,  and  glass  and 
other  substances  when  rubbed  become  attractive.  Thus  the 
way  was  open  for  Newton  to  calculate  the  effect  of  gra- 
vitation as  such  an  attractive  force,  and  by  it  to  ex- 
plain the  movements  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  thus  bringing 
the  visible  world  within  the  sway  of  one  universal  law.  In 
the  present  day,  among  the  great  laws  which  have  been 
established  in  physical  science,  is  that  of  the  conservation 
of  energy,  that  power  is  not  created  and  destroyed  in 
the  processes  of  nature  or  the  machines  of  man,  but  is 
transformed  into  new  manifestations  equivalent  to  those 
which  were  before.  Philosophers'  minds  used  often  to  be 
set  on  the  invention  of  a  perpetual  moving  power,  that 
should  go  on  creating  its  own  force.  But  nowadays  this 
idea  is  so  discarded  that,  when  some  projector  plans 
an  absurd  machine,  he  is  sufficiently  answered  by  being 
shown  that  if  his  machine  could  work,  the  perpetual 
motion  would  be  possible.  The  modern  mechanician 
has  only  to  apply  in  the  most  desirable  way  the  stores 
of    force   placed   at   his    disposal    by   nature,    and    within 


326  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

this  well-understood  boundary  his  business  flourishes  more 
and  more. 

Among  the  forms  or  manifestations  of  energy  are  sound, 
light,  heat,  electricity.  The  classic  philosophers  knew  in  a 
vague  way  that  sound  spreads  like  waves  ;  and  the  relation 
between  the  length  of  a  harpstring  and  its  note  was  laid  down 
in  arithmetical  rule  by  Pythagoras,  who  measured  it  with 
the  instrument  we  still  use,  the  monochord.  But  it 
was  the  moderns  who  measured  the  velocity  of  sovmd,  ex- 
plained musical  pitch  by  the  rate  of  vibration,  and  made  the 
science  of  tone.  About  light  the  ancients  knew  more.  Their 
polished  metal  mirrors,  flat  and  curved,  had  taught  them  the 
first  principles  of  reflexion.  Nor  were  they  ignorant  of 
refraction ;  they  already  knew  the  familiar  experiment  of 
putting  a  ring  in  a  basin  and  pouring  in  water  till  it  becomes 
visible.  A  rock-crystal  lens  has  been  dug  up  at  Nineveh, 
and  the  Greeks  and  Romans  were  well  acquainted  with  glass 
lenses.  One  is  surprised  that  neither  the  Arab  astronomers, 
who  knew  a  good  deal  of  optics,  nor  Roger  Bacon,  who 
in  the  thirteenth  century  gave  an  intelligent  account  of 
their  science,  ever  seem  to  have  combined  two  lenses  into 
a  telescope.  It  was  not  till  the  seventeenth  century  that  a 
telescope  is  plainly  mentioned  in  Holland,  and  Galileo, 
hearing  of  it,  made  the  famous  instrument  with  which  he 
saw  Jupiter's  moons,  and  revolutionized  men's  ideas  of  the 
universe.  The  microscope  and  telescope  may  be  called 
inverted  forms  of  one  another,  and  their  inventions  came 
nearly  together.  By  these  two  instruments  the  range  of 
man's  vision  has  been  so  vastly  extended  beyond  his 
unaided  eyesight,  that  animalcules  under  a  ten-thousandth 
of  an  inch  long  can  now  be  watched  through  all  the  stage's 
of  their  life,  while  stars  whose  distance  from  the  earth  is 
hundreds  of  thousands   of  billions  of  miles,  are  within  the 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  327 

maps  of  the  universe.  The  rainbow  led  to  the  problem  of 
the  decomposition  of  light  and  the  theory  of  colour.  The 
doctrine  that  light  was  as  it  were  bright  particles  emitted 
in  straight  lines  from  the  luminous  body,  failed  to  explain 
effects  such  as  light  extinguishing  light  by  interference,  and 
it  has  yielded  to  the  undulatory  theory,  of  ethereal  light- 
waves of  extreme  smallness  and  speed.  In  our  own  day 
the  lines  of  the  spectrum  have  become  the  means  of  re- 
cognising a  glowing  substance,  so  that  the  astronomer 
whose  telescope  reveals  the  faint  shine  of  a  nebula  in  the 
depths  of  the  heavens,  may  test  its  composition  with  the 
spectroscope,  as  if  it  were  a  gas-jet  on  the  laboratory  table. 
Closely  connected  with  the  science  of  light,  is  the  science  of 
heat.  Not  only  do  heat  and  light  proceed  together  from  the 
sun  or  fire,  but  the  two  were  seen  to  be  subject  to  the 
same  laws,  when  it  was  noticed  that  the  mirror  or  lens 
which  concentrated  a  bright  spot  of  light,  also  brought  to 
the  same  focus  heat  that  would  set  wood  on  fire.  The 
great  step  in  the  study  of  heat  was  the  invention  of  the 
heat-measurer  or  thermometer.  Who  first  made  it  is  not 
known,  but  it  was  about  three  centuries  ago,  and  its  earliest 
form  may  have  been  the  air-flask  with  its  tube  in  which 
coloured  water  rises  and  falls,  which  is  still  the  most  striking 
way  of  showing  a  class  the  principle  of  thermometers.  The 
doctrine  of  heat  as  due  to  vibration  explains  how  heat  is 
transformed  force,  so  that  the  steam-hammer  worked  by  the 
heat  used  in  the  furnace  can  be  set  to  beat  cold  iron  till  it 
is  white-hot ;  thus  part  of  the  force  which  came  from  heat 
has  gone  back  into  heat,  and  with  the  heat  re-appears  the 
other  form  of  radiant  energy,  light.  Lastly,  the  history  of 
electricity  comes  from  the  time  when  the  ancients  wondered 
to  see  amber  when  rubbed  pick  up  morsels  of  straw,  and 
the   loadstone   draw   bits  of  iron.      The   pointing  of  the 


328  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

loadstone  south  and  north  seems  to  have  been  earUest 
noticed  by  the  Chinese,  whence  in  the  middle  ages  came 
its  world-wide  use  in  navigation.  The  electrical  machine 
is  only  an  enlarged  form  of  the  old  experiment  of  rubbing 
the  bit  of  ambjr.  But  the  discoveries  associated  with  the 
name  of  Volta  and  Galvani  brought  in  a  new  method  of 
generating  electricity  by  chemical  action  in  the  battery. 
Franklin's  kite  proved  the  lightning-flash  to  be  but  a  great 
electric  spark.  Oersted's  current-wire  deflecting  a  magnetic 
needle  showed  the  relation  between  electricity  and  mag- 
netism, and  set  on  foot  the  line  of  invention  to  which  the 
world  owes  the  electric  telegraph  and  much  besides. 

Next,  as  to  chemistry.  Its  beginnings  lie  in  practical 
processes  such  as  smelting  metal  from  the  ore,  fusing  sand 
and  soda  into  glass,  and  tanning  leather  with  astringent  pods 
or  bark.  The  oldest  civilized  nations  knew  these  and  many 
other  chemical  arts,  which  not  only  were  learnt  by  the 
artificers  of  Greece  and  Rome,  but  from  time  to  time  new 
processes  were  added  to  the  store  of  knowledge,  as  when 
we  hear  of  their  distilling  mercury  from  cinnabar,  or  treatirg 
copper  with  vinegar  to  make  verdigris.  In  early  civilized 
ages  also  there  arose  beside  these  practical  recipes  the  first 
dim  outlines  of  scientific  chemistry.  The  Greek  philosophers 
expressed  their  ideas  of  the  states  of  matter  by  the  four 
elements,  fire,  air,  water,  earth ;  and  they  also  had  learnt  or 
invented  the  doctrine  of  matter  being  made  up  of  atoms — a 
principle  now  more  influential  than  ever  in  modern  lecture- 
rooms.  The  successors  of  the  Greeks  were  the  Arabic  alche- 
mists, and  their  disciples  in  mcdiceval  Christendom.  Their 
belief  that  matter  might  be  transmuted  or  transformed  led 
many  of  them  to  spend  their  lives  among  their  furnaces  and 
alembics  in  the  attempt  to  turn  baser  metals  into  gold.  To 
modern  chemists,  who  would  not  be  surprised  to  find  all  the 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  329 

many  so-called  elements  proved  to  be  forms  of  one  matter, 
the  alchemists'  idea  does  not  seem  quite  unreasonable  in 
itself,  and  practically  it  led  them  to  the  pursuit  of  truth  by 
experiment,  so  that  though  they  found  no  philosophers' 
stone,  they  were  repaid  by  discoveries  such  as  alcohol, 
ammonia,  sulphuric  acid.  Their  method,  being  founded  on 
trials  of  real  fact,  cleared  itself  more  and  more  from  the 
magical  folly  it  had  grown  up  with,  and  the  alchemist  pre- 
pared the  way  for  the  later  chemist.  What  of  all  things 
brought  on  the  new  chemical  knowledge,  was  the  explana- 
tion of  what  takes  place  in  burning,  rusting,  and  breathing. 
How  is  it  that  the  air  in  a  receiver  is  spoilt  by  a  burning 
candle  or  a  mouse  within,  so  that  it  no  longer  allows  flame 
or  life  ?  How  is  it  that  while  some  substances,  like  char- 
coal, seem  to  be  dissipated  by  fire,  others,  like  lead  or  iron, 
turn  into  matter  heavier  than  before  ?  The  answers  to 
such  questions  led  the  way  to  clearer  notions  of  chemical 
combination,  but  it  was  long  before  it  was  understood  by  what 
fixed  laws  of  affinity  and  proportion  this  combination  takes 
place.  The  advanced  student  of  chemistry  may  spend  an 
instructive  hour  in  looking  over  old  chemistry  books,  where 
the  catalogue  of  substances  is  a  confused  chaos,  not  as 
yet  brought  into  form  and  order  on  the  lines  of  Dalton's 
atomic  theory. 

From  the  chemical  nature  of  matter  we  pass  to  the  nature 
of  living  things.  The  more  evident  parts  of  biology  or  the 
science  of  life,  have  come  under  man's  attentive  observation 
from  the  first.  So  far  as  zoology  and  botany  consist  in 
noticing  the  forms  and  habits  of  animals  and  plants,  savages 
and  barbarians  are  skilled  in  them.  Such  people,  for  in- 
stance, as  the  natives  of  the  South  American  forests,  have 
names  for  each  bird  and  beast,  whose  voices,  resorts,  and 
migrations  they  know  with  an  accuracy  that  astonishes  the 


330  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

European  naturalist  whom  they  guide  through  the  jungle. 
The  catalogue  of  the  Brazilian  native  names  of  animals  and 
plants,  often  curiously  descriptive  of   their  natures,  would 
make  a  small  book.     Thus  the  jaguara  piinina  or  painted 
jaguar  is  distinguished  from  the  jaguarete  or  great  jaguar  ; 
the  capybara  signifies  the  creature   "  living  in  the  grass,"  the 
ipe-caa-goene,  or  "little  wayside-plant-emetic,"  is  our  ipeca- 
cuanha.    Mankind  everywhere  possesses  this  sort  of  popular 
Natural  History,     So  it  is  with  anatomy.  When  the  savage 
kills  a  deer,  cuts  it  up,  cooks  the  joints,  heart,  and  liver, 
makes  clothes  and  straps  of  the  hide,  cuts  harpoon-heads 
and  awls  out  of  the  long  bones,  and  uses  the  sinews  for 
thread,  it  stands  to  reason  that  he  must  have  a  good  rough 
knowledge  of  the    anatomy  of  an  animal.       The   barbaric 
warrior  and  doctor  have  beyond  such  butchers'  anatomy  an 
acquaintance  with  the  structure  of  man's  body,  as  may  be 
seen  in  the  description  of  the  wounds  of  the  heroes  in  the 
Iliad,  where  the  spear  takes  one  in  the  diaphragm  below  the 
heart,  and  another  has  the  shoulder-tendon  broken  which 
makes  his  arm  drop  helpless.  Among  the  Greeks  such  rough 
knowledge  passed  into  the  scientific  stage   when  Aristotle 
wrote  his  book  on  animals,  and  Hippokrates  took  medicine 
away  from  the  priests  and  sorcerers  to  make  it  a  method  of 
treatment  by  diet  and  drugs.     The  action  of  the  body  came 
to  be  better  understood  during  this  classical  period,  as,  for  in- 
stance, is  seen  in  the  nerves  leading  to  and  from  the  brain 
being  no  longer  confounded  with  the  sinews  which  pull  the 
limbs,  although  the   same  Greek   word   neuron  {nerve)  still 
continued  to  be  used  for  both.   It  is  curious  how  long  it  took 
the  ancients  to  get  at  the  notion  of  what  muscle  is,  and  how 
it  acts.    They  never  understood  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
though  they  had  ideas  about  it,   as  in  Plato's  celebrated 
])assage  in  the  Timaios  which  compares  the  heart  to  a  foun- 


XHi.]  •        SCIENCE.  331 

tain  sending  the  blood  round  to  nourish  the  body,  which  is 
like  a  garden  laid  out  with  irrigating  channels.  Imperfect 
as  ancient  knowledge  was,  it  may  be  plainly  seen  how 
modern  science  is  based  upon  it.  Thus  the  medical  terms 
of  Galen's  system,  such  as  the  diagnosis  of  disease,  are 
still  usedj  and  indeed  many  old  physician's  words  have 
passed  into  common  talk,  as  when  one  is  said  to  be  in 
a  sajiguine  humour,  which  carries  us  back  to  the  time  wnen 
the  humours  or  fluids  of  the  body  were  thought  to  cause 
the  state  of  mind,  the  humour  which  is  sanguine,  or  "of 
the  blood,"  being  lively  and  impetuous.  But  in  knowledge 
of  the  body  the  moderns  have  left  the  ancients  quite  behind, 
now  that  the  microscope  shows  its  minute  vessels  and  tissues, 
and  there  have  been  made  out  the  circulation  of  the  blood, 
the  process  of  respiration,  the  chemistry  of  digestion,  and 
the  travelling  of  currents  along  the  nerves.  Natural  History 
still  goes  on  the  principles  of  Aristotle,  when  he  traces  life  on 
from  lifeless  matter  through  the  series  of  plants  and  animals. 
Modern  naturalists  like  Linnseus  so  improved  the  old  classi- 
fication, that  it  became  possible  to  take  a  plant  or  animal  one 
had  never  seen  before  and  did  not  know  the  name  of,  and 
make  out  by  examination  that  it  must  belong  to  such  and 
such  a  genus  and  species.  Moreover,  naturalists  have  long 
been  seeking  to  understand  why  the  thousands  of  species 
should  arrange  themselves  in  groups  or  genera,  the  species 
in  each  genus  being  connected  by  a  common  likeness,  and 
the  genera  themselves  falling  into  higher  groups,  or  orders. 
The  thought  that  the  likeness  among  the  species  forming  a 
genus  is  a  family  likeness,  due  to  these  species  being  in 
fact  the  varied  descendants  of  one  race  or  stock,  is  the 
foundation  of  that  theory  of  development  or  evolution 
which  for  many  ages  has  been  in  the  minds  of  naturalists, 
and  now  so  largely  prevails.     This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss 


332  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap/ 

the  doctrine  of  descent  or  development  (see  page  38), 
^but  it  is  worth  while  to  remember  that  the  very  word  genus 
meant  originally  birth  or  race,  so  that  the  naturalist  who  sets 
down  the  horse,  ass,  zebra,  quagga,  as  all  belonging  to  one 
genus  Equus,  is  really  suggesting  that  they  are  all  descended 
from  one  kind  of  animal,  and  are  in  fact  distant  cousins, 
which  is  the  first  principle  of  the  development-theor3^ 

The  world  we  live  in  is  the  subject  of  astronomy,  geo- 
graphy, geology.  It  seems  plain  how  the  rudiments  of 
these  sciences  began  from  the  evidence  of  men's  senses. 
Children  living  unschooled  in  some  wild  woodland  would 
take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that  the  earth  is  a  circular 
floor,  more  or  less  uneven,  arched  over  with  a  dome  or 
firmament  springing  from  the  horizon.  Thus  the  natural 
and  primitive  notion  of  the  world  is  that  it  is  like  a  round 
dish  with  a  cover.  Rude  tribes  in  many  countries  are  found 
thinking  so,  and  working  out  the  idea  so  as  to  account  for 
such  phenomena  as  rain,  which  is  water  from  above  dripping 
in  through  holes  in  the  sky-roof.  This  firmament  is  studded 
with  stars,  and  is  a  few  miles  off.  There  is  nothing  to 
suggest  to  the  savage  that  the  sun  should  be  enormously 
more  distant  than  the  cloud  it  seems  to  plunge  into.  The 
sun  seems  to  go  down  in  the  west  into  the  sea,  or  through 
an  opening  in  the  horizon,  and  to  rise  in  like  manner  in 
the  east,  so  that  sunset  and  sunrise  force  on  the  minds  of 
the  first  rude  astronomers  the  belief  in  an  under-world  or 
infernal  region,  through  which  the  sun  travels  in  the  night, 
and  which  to  many  a  nation  has  seemed  also  the  abode  of 
departed  souls,  when  after  their  bright  day  of  life  they  sink 
like  the  sun  into  the  night  of  death.  The  sun  and  moon 
move  as  living  gods  in  the  heaven,  or  at  least  are  drawn  or 
driven  by  such  celestial  powers,  while  the  presence  of  living 
beings  in  the  sky  seems  peculiarly  manifest  in  eclipses,  when 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  333 

invisible  monsters  seize  or  swallow  the  sun  and  moon.  All 
this  Is  very  natural,  so  natural  indeed  that  more  correct 
astronomy  has  not  yet  rooted  it  out  of  Europe.  Not  many 
years  ago  a  schoolmaster  who  ventured  to  lecture  on 
astronomy  in  the  west  of  England  roused  the  displeasure 
of  the  country  folk,  that  this  young  man  should  tell  them 
the  world  was  round  and  went  about,  when  they  had  lived 
on  it  all  their  lives  and  knew  it  was  Hat  and  stood  still. 
One  part  of  the  earliest  astronomy,  which  was  so  sound  as 
to  have  held  its  own  ever  since,  was  the  measurement  of 
time  by  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars.  The  day  and  the  month 
fix  themselves  at  once.  In  a  less  exact  way  the  seasons  of 
the  year,  such  as  the  rainy  .season,  or  the  icy  season,  or  the 
growing  season,  furnish  a  means  of  reckoning,  as  where  a 
savage  tells  of  his  father' .s  death  having  been  three  rains  or 
three  winters  ago.  Rude  tribes,  who  observe  the  stars  to 
find  their  way  by,  notice  also  that  the  rising  and  setting  of 
particular  stars  or  constellations  mark  the  seasons.  Thus 
the  natives  of  South  Australia  call  the  constellation  Lyra 
the  Loan-bird,  for  they  notice  that  when  it  sets  with  the  sun, 
the  season  for  getting  loan-birds'  eggs  has  begun.  It  stands 
to  reason  that  the  great  facts  of  the  year's  course,  the  change 
of  the  sun's  height  at  noon,  and  the  lengthening  and  shorten- 
ing of  the  days,  would  be  noticed,  so  that  even  among 
people  who  have  not  as  yet  measured  them  with  any  ac- 
curacy, there  exists  in  a  loose  way  the  notion  of  tlie  year. 
Within  the  year,  too,  the  successive  moons  or  months  come 
to  be  arranged  with  some  regularity,  as  where  the  Ojibwas 
reckoned  in  order  the  wild-rice  moon,  the  leaves-falling 
moon,  the  ice-moon,  the  snow-shoes  moon,  and  so  forth. 
But  such  lunar  months  have  to  be  got  into  the  year  as 
they  best  may.  Indeed  what  distinguishes  the  uncivilized 
calendar,  is  that  though  days,  months,  and  years  are  known, 


334  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  days  are  not  yet  fitted  regularly  into  the  months,  nor  is 
it  settled  how  many  months,  much  less  how  many  days, 
the  year  is  to  consist  of. 

When  we  look  from  this  to  the  astronomy  of  the  ancient 
cultured  nations,  we  find  great  progress  made  in  observing 
and  calculating.  Yet  the  astronomer-priests  who  for  ages 
watched  and  recorded  the  aspect  of  the  heavens,  had  not 
yet  cut  themselves  free  from  the  ideas  of  their  barbarian 
forefathers  as  to  what  the  Avorld  as  a  whole  was  like.  In 
the  Egyptian  Book  of  the  Dead,  the  departed  souls  descend 
with  the  sun-god  through  the  western  gate,  and  travel  with 
him  among  the  fields  and  rivers  of  the  under-world,  and 
the  Assyrian  records  also  tell  of  the  regions  below,  where 
Ishtar  descends  into  the  dark  abode  of  fluttering  ghosts, 
the  house  men  enter  but  cannot  depart  from.  Yet  the 
Egyptians  who  held  to  this  primitive  astronomy  had  set  the 
Great  Pyramid  by  the  cardinal  points  with  remarkable  ex- 
actness. In  reckoning  the  year,  they  not  only  added  to  the 
12  solar  months  of  30  days  5  intercalary  days  to  make  365, 
but  becoming  aware  that  even  this  was  not  accurate,  they 
recorded  its  variation  till  it  should  come  round  in  a  cycle  of 
1,461  years,  as  determined  by  the  rising  of  Sirius.  Even 
more  advanced  was  the  astronomy  of  the  Chaldceans,  with 
its  records  of  eclipses  extending  over  2,000  years.  In  the 
astronomy  of  barbarians  the  five  planets  Mercury,  Venus^ 
Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Saturn,  are  not  thought  much  of  in  com- 
parison with  the  Sun  and  Moon.  But  among  the  Chaldeeans 
all  the  seven  planets  were  classed  together  as  objects  of 
worship  and  observation,  starting  the  ideas  of  the  sacred 
number  seven,  which  thence  pervaded  the  mystical  philosophy 
of  the  ancients.  It  may  have  been  among  tlie  Babylonian 
astronomers  that  the  study  of  the  motions  of  the  planets 
led  to  the  theory  that  they  were  carried  round  on  seven 


xiii]  SCIENCE.  335 

crystal  spheres  ;  to  this  day  people  talk  of  being  "  in  the 
seventh  heaven."  The  next  and  great  step  in  astronomy 
was  when  the  long-treasured  knowledge  of  Babylon  and 
Egypt  was  taken  up  by  the  Greeks,  to  be  carried  on  by  the 
exact  methods  of  the  geometer.  The  Greek  astronomers 
were  familiar  with  the  idea  of  the  earth  being  a  sphere  ;  they 
calculated  its  circumference,  and  usually  taking  it  as  the  centre 
of  the  universe,  they  measured  the  apparent  movements  of  the 
heavenly  bodies.  This  system,  in  its  most  perfect  form 
known  as  the  Ptolemaic,  held  its  place  into  the  middle  ages, 
when  it  came  into  rivalry  with  the  Copernican  system  of  a 
central  sun  round  which  revolve  the  earth  and  other  planets. 
How  this  became  in  the  hands  of  Kepler  and  Newton  a 
mechanical  theory  of  the  universe,  and  how  man  was  at 
last  stripped  of  the  fond  conceit  that  his  little  planet  was 
the  centre  of  all  things,  need  not  be  re-told  here. 

Geography  is  a  practical  kind  of  knowledge  in  which  the 
rudest  tribes  are  well  skilled,  so  far  as  it  consists  in 
the  lie  of  their  own  land,  the  course  of  the  streams,  the  passes 
over  the  mountains,  how  many  days"  marches  through  forest 
and  desert  to  reach  some  distant  hunting-ground,  or  the  hill- 
side where  hard  stone  for  hatchets  is  to  be  found.  However 
uncivilized  a  people  may  be,  they  name  their  mountains  and 
rivers  in  such  terms  as  "  red  hill ''  or  "  beaver  brook."  In- 
deed the  atlas  contains  hundreds  of  names  of  places  that  once 
had  meanings  in  tongues  which  no  man  any  longer  speaks. 
Scientific  geography  begins  when  men  come  to  drawing 
maps,  an  art  which  perhaps  no  savage  takes  to  untaught, 
but  which  was  known  to  the  early  civilized  nations  ;  the 
oldest  known  map  is  an  Egyptian  plan  of  the  gold-mines 
of  Ethiopia,  The  earliest  known  mention  of  a  geographer 
attempting  a  map  of  the  world  is  by  Herodotus,  who 
tells    of  Arista^^oras's  bronze     tablet     inscribed    with    the 


336  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

circuit  of  the  whole  earth,  the  sea  and  all  rivers.  But  to 
the  ancients  the  known  world  was  a  very  limited  district 
round  their  own  countries.  It  brings  the  growth  of  geography- 
well  before  our  minds  to  look  at  the  map  in  Gladstone's 
Jiiventus  Miindi,  representing  the  world  according  to  the 
Homeric  poems,  with  its  group  of  nations  round  the 
]\Iediterranean,  and  the  great  Ocean  River  encircling  the 
whole.  Later,  in  the  world  as  known  to  geographers  such 
as  Strabo,  the  lands  of  men  form  a  vast  oval,  reaching 
from  the  pillars  of  Herakles  across  to  far  India,  and 
from  tropical  Africa  up  to  polar  Europe.  How  land  and 
sea  came  to  lie  as  they  do,  it  is  the  business  of  geology 
to  explain.  This  is  among  the  most  modern  of  sciences, 
yet  its  problems  had  long  set  rude  men  thinking.  Even  the 
Greenlanders  and  the  South  Sea  Islanders  have  noticed  the 
fossils  inland  and  high  on  the  mountains,  and  account  for 
them  by  declaring  that  the  earth  was  once  tilted  over,  ox 
that  the  sea  rose  in  a  great  flood  and  covered  the  mountains, 
leaving  at  their  very  tops  the  remains  of  fishes.  In  the 
infancy  of  Greek  science,  Herodotus  speculated  more 
rightly  as  to  how  the  valley  of  Egypt  had  been  formed  by 
deposits  of  mud  from  the  Nile,  while  the  shells  on  the 
mountains  proved  to  him  that  the  sea  had  once  been  where 
dry  land  now  is.  But  two  thousand  years  had  to  pass 
before  these  lines  of  thought  were  followed  up  by  the 
modern  geologists,  to  whom  the  earth  is  now  revealing  the 
long  history  of  the  deposit  and  removal,  rising  and  sinking 
of  its  beds,  and  the  succession  of  jjlants  and  animals  which 
from  remote  ages  have  lived  upon  it. 

From  this  survey  of  the  various  branches  of  science,  it  is 
clear  that  their  progress  has  been  made  in  age  after  age  by 
facts  being  more  fully  observed  and  more  carefully  reasoned 
on.     Reasoning  or  logic  is  itself  a  science,  but  like  other 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  337 

sciences,  it  began  as  an  art  which  man  practised  without 
stopping  to  ask  himself  why  or  how.  He  worked  out  his 
conclusions  by  thinking  and  talking,  untold  ages  before  it 
occurred  to  him  to  lay  down  rules  how  to  argue.  Indeed, 
speech  and  reason  work  together.  A  language  which  dis- 
tinguishes substantive,  adjective,  and  verb,  is  already  a 
powerful  reasoning-apparatus.  jNIen  had  made  no  mean 
advance  toward  scientific  method  when  their  language 
enabled  them  to  class  wood  as  heavy  or  light,  and  to  form 
such  propositions  as,  light  wood  floats,  heavy  wood  sinks. 
The  rise  of  reasoning  into  the  scientific  stage  was  chiefly 
due  to  the  Greek  philosophers,  and  Aristotle  brought  argu- 
ment into  a  regular  system  by  the  method  of  syllogisms. 
Of  course  the  simpler  forms  of  these  had  always  belonged 
to  practical  reasoning,  and  a  savage,  aware  that  red-hot 
coals  burn  flesh,  would  not  thank  a  logician  for  explaining 
to  him  that  in  consequence  of  this  principle  a  particular  red- 
hot  coal  will  burn  his  fingers.  It  must  not  be  supposed 
that  the  introduction  of  logic  as  a  science  had  the  effect  of 
at  once  stopping  bad  argument,  and  it  was  rather  by  setting 
practically  to  work  on  exact  reasoning,  especially  in  mathe- 
matics, that  the  Greeks  brought  on  a  general  advance  in 
knowledge.  The  importance  of  science  was  recognised 
when  the  famous  IMuseum  of  Alexandria  flourished,  the 
type  of  later  universities,  with  its  great  libraries,  its  labora- 
tories, its  zoological  and  botariical  gardens.  Hither  students 
came  by  thousands  to  follow  mathematics,  chemistry, 
anatomy,  under  professors  who  resorted  there  at  once  to 
teach  others  and  to  learn  themselves.  Looking  at  the  his- 
tory of  science  for  eighteen  hundred  years  after  this  flourish- 
ing lime,  though  some  progress  was  made,  it  was  not  what 
might  have  b^en  expected,  and  on  the  whole  things  went 
wrong.     The  so-called  scholastic  period  which  prevailed  in 


333  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Europe  was  unfavourable,  partly  because  excessive  reverence 
for  the  authority  of  the  past  fettered  men's  minds,  and 
partly  because  the  learned  successors  of  Aristotle  had  come 
to  believe  so  utterly  in  argumentation  as  to  fancy  that  the 
problems  of  the  world  could  be  dealt  with  by  arguing 
about  them,  without  increasing  the  stock  of  real  know- 
ledge. The  great  movement  of  modern  philosophy  with 
which  the  name  of  Bacon  is  associated  as  a  chief  ex- 
pounder, brought  men  back  to  the  sound  old  method  of 
working  experience  and  thought  together,  only  now  the 
experience  was  more  carefully  sought  and  observed,  and 
thought  arranged  it  more  systematically.  We  who  live  in 
an  age  when  every  week  shows  new  riches  of  nature's  facts, 
and  new  shapeliness  in  the  laws  that  connect  them,  have 
the  best  of  practical  proof  that  science  is  now  moving  on 
a  right  track. 

The  student  who  wishes  to  compare  the  mental  habits 
of  rude  and  ancient  peoples  with  our  own,  may  look 
into  a  subject  which  has  now  fallen  into  contempt  from 
its  practical  uselessness,  but  which  is  most  instructive  in 
showing  how  ^the  unscientific  mind  works.  This  is  Magic. 
In  the  earlier  days  of  knowledge  men  relied  far  more  than 
we  moderns  do  on  reasoning  by  analog}'  or  mere  associa- 
tion of  ideas.  In  getting  on  from  what  is  known  already 
to  something  new,  analogy  or  reasoning  by  resemblance 
always  was,  as  it  still  is,  the  mind's  natural  guide  in  the 
quest  of  truth.  Only  its  results  must  be  put  under  the 
control  of  experience.  When  the  Australians  picked  up  the 
bits  of  broken  bottles  left  by  the  European  sailors,  the  like- 
ness of  the  nevv  material  to  their  own  stone  flakes  at  once 
led  them  to  try  it  for  teeth  to  their  spears ;  experience 
proved  that  in  this  case  the  argument  from  analogy  held 
good,  for   the   broken   glass   answered   perfectly.     So   the 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  339 

North  American  Indian,  in  default  of  tobacco,  finds  some 
more  or  less  similar  plant  to  serve  instead,  such  as  willow- 
bark.  The  practical  knowledge  of  nature  possessed  by 
savages  is  so  great,  that  it  cannot  have  been  gained  by  mere 
chance  observations  ;  they  must  have  been  for  ages  con- 
stantly noticing  and  trying  new  things,  to  see  how  far  their 
behaviour  corresponded  with  that  of  things  partly  like  them. 
And  where  the  matter  can  be  brought  to  practical  trial  by 
experiment,  this  is  a  thoroughly  scientific  method.  But  the 
rude  man  wants  to  learn  and  do  far  more  difficult  things — 
how  to  find  where  there  is  plenty  of  game,  or  whether  his 
enemies  are  coming,  how  to  save  himself  from  the  lightning, 
or  how  to  hurt  some  one  he  hates,  but  cannot  safely  throw  a 
spear  at.  In  such  matters  beyond  his  limited  knowledge,  he 
contents  himself  with  working  on  resemblances  or  analogies 
of  thought,  which  thus  become  the  foundation  of  magic.  On 
looking  into  the  "  occult  sciences,"  it  is  easy  to  make  out  in 
them  principles  which  are  intelligible  if  one  can  only  bring 
one's  mind  down  to  the  childish  state  they  belong  to. 
Nothing  shows  thi,s  better  than  the  rules  of  astrology, 
although  this  is  far  from  the  rudest  kind  of  magic.  Accord- 
ing to  the  astrologers,  a  man  born  under  the  sign  Taurus  is 
likely  to  have  a  broad  brow  and  thick  lips,  and  to  be  brutal 
and  unfeeling,  but  when  enraged,  violent  and  furious.  If 
he  had  been  born  under  the  sign  Libra,  he  would  have 
had  a  just  and  well-balanced  mind.  All  this  is  because  two 
particular  groups  of  stars  happen  to  have  been  called  the  bull 
and  the  balance;  the  child  whose  hour  of  birth  has  some  sort 
of  astronomical  relation  to  these  constellations  is  imagined 
to  have  a  character  resembling  that  of  a  real  bull  or  a  real 
pair  of  scales.  So  with  the  planets.  He  over  whom  Mars 
presides  in  his  better  aspect  will  be  bold  and  fearless,  but 
where  the  planet  is  "  ill-dignified,"  then  he  will  be  a  boastful 


340  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

shameless  bully,  ready  to -rob  and  murder.  Had  he  but 
been  born  when  Venus  was  in  the  ascendant,  how  different 
would  he  have  been,  with  dimpled  cheek  and  soft  voice  apt 
to  speak  of  love.  Practically  foolish  as  all  this  is,  it  is  not 
unintelligible.  There  is  in  it  a  train  of  thought  which  can 
be  followed  quite  easily,  though  it  is  a  train  of  thought 
hardly  strong  enough  for  a  joke,  much  less  for  a  serious 
argument.  Yet  such  is  the  magic  which  still  pervades  the 
barbaric  world.  The  North  American  Indian,  eager  to  kill 
a  bear  to-morrow,  will  hang  up  a  rude  grass  image  of  one 
and  shoot  it,  reckoning  that  this  symbolic  act  will  make  the 
real  one  happen.  The  Australians  at  a  burial,  to  know  in 
what  direction  they  may  find  the  wicked  sorcerer  who  has 
killed  their  friend,  will  take  as  their  omen  the  direction  of 
the  flames  of  the  grave-fire.  The  Zulu  who  has  to  buy 
cattle  may  be  seen  chewing  a  bit  of  wood,  in  order  to 
soften  the  hard  heart  of  the  seller  he  is  dealing  with.  The 
accounts  of  such  practices  would  fill  a  volume,  and  they  do 
not  seem  broken-down  remains  of  old  ideas,  for  there  is  no 
reason  to  suppose  they  ever  had  more  sense  in  them  than 
is  to  be  plainly  seen  now.  They  may  be  derived  from  some 
such  loose  savage  logic  as  this  : — Things  which  are  like  one 
another  behave  in  the  same  way— shooting  this  image  of  a 
bear  is  like  shooting  a  real  bear — therefore,  if  I  shoot  the 
image  I  shall  shoot  a  real  bear.  It  is  true  that  such 
magical  proceedings,  if  tested  by  facts,  prove  to  be  worth- 
less. But  if  we  wonder  that  nevertheless  they  should  so 
prevail  among  mankind,  it  may  be  answered  that  they  last 
on  even  m  our  own  country  among  those  who  are  too 
ignorant  to  test  them  by  facts — the  rustics  who  believe  a 
neighbour's  ill-wishing  has  killed  their  cow,  and  who,  on 
true  savage  principles,  try  to  punish  the  evil-doer  by  putting 
a  heart  spitefully  stuck  full  of  pins  up  the  chimney  to  shrivel 


XIII.]  SCIENCE.  341 

in  the  smoke,  that  in  like  manner  sharp  pangs  may  pierce 
him  and  he  may  waste  away. 

In  another  and  very  different  way  the  student  of  science 
is  interested  in  magic.  Loose  and  illogical  as  man's  early 
reasonings  may  be,  and  slow  as  he  may  be  to  improve  them 
under  the  check  of  experience,  it  is  a  law  of  human  pro- 
gress that  thought  tends  to  work  itself  clear.  Thus  even 
the  fancies  of  magic  have  been  sources  of  real  knowledge. 
Few  magical  superstitions  are  more  troublesome  than  the 
Chinese  geomancy  or  rules  of  "wind  and  water,"  by  which 
a  lucky  site  has  to  be  chosen  for  building  a  house.  Absurd 
as  this  ancient  art  is,  its  professors  appear  to  have  been. 
the  earliest  to  use  the  magnetic  compass  to  determine  the 
aspects  of  the  heavens,  so  that  it  seems  the  magician  gave 
the  navigator  his  guide  in  exploring  the  world.  What 
exact  science  owes  to  astrology  is  well  known,  how  in 
Chaldsea  the  places  of  tlie  stars  were  systematically  ob- 
served and  recorded  for  portents  of  battle  and  pestilence, 
and  registers  of  lucky  and  unlucky  days.  The  old  magical 
character  hung  to  astronomy  even  into  modern  ages,  when 
astrologers  like  Tycho  Brahe  and  Kepler,  who  believed  that 
the  destinies  of  men  were  foretold  by  the  planets,  helped 
by  their  observation  and  calculation  to  foretell  the  motions 
of  the  planets  themselves.  Thus  man  has  but  to  go 
on  observing  and  thinking,  secure  that  in  time  his  errors 
will  fall  away,  while  the  truth  he  attains  to  will  abide 
and  grow. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 


THE       S  P  I  R  I  T  -  W  O  RL  D. 


Religion  of  Lower  Races,  342 — Souls,  343 — Burial,  347 — Future 
Life,  349 — Transmigratioiij  350 — Divine  Ance.tors,  351 — Demons, 
352 — Nature  Spirits,  357 — Gods,  358 — Worship,  364 — Moral  In- 
fluence, 368. 

It  does  not  belong  to  the  plan  of  this  book  to  give 
a  general  account  of  the  many  faiths  of  mankind.  The 
anthropologist,  who  has  to  look  at  the  religions  of  nations  as 
a  main  part  of  their  life,  may  best  become  acquainted  with 
their  general  principles  by  beginning  with  the  simple  notions 
of  the  lower  races  as  to  the  spirit-world.  That  is,  he  has  to 
examine  how  and  why  they  believe  in  the  soul  and  its 
existence  after  death,  the  spirits  who  do  good  and  evil  in 
the  world,  and  the  greater  gods  who  pervade,  actuate,  and 
rule  the  universe.  Any  one  who  learns  from  savages  and 
barbarians  what  their  belief  in  spiritual  beings  means  to 
them,  will  come  into  view  of  that  stage  of  culture  where 
the  religion  of  rude  tribes  is  at  the  same  time  their  philo- 
sophy, containing  such  explanation  of  themselves  and  the 
world  they  live  in  as  their  uneducated  minds  are  able  to 
receive. 

The  idea  of  the  soul  which  is  held  by  uncultured  races, 
and  is  the  foundation  of  their  religion,  is  not  difficult  to  us 


CHAP.  XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  343 

to  understand,  if  we  can  fancy  ourselves  in  their  place, 
ignorant  of  the  very  rudiments  of  science,  and  trying  to  get 
at  the  meaning  of  life  by  what  the  senses  seem  to  tell.  The 
great  question  that  forces  itself  on  their  minds  is  one  that  we 
with  all  our  knowledge  cannot  half  answer,  what  tlie  life  is 
which  is  sometimes  in  us,  but  not  always.  A  person  who  a 
few  minutes  ago  was  walking  and  talking,  with  all  his  senses 
active,  goes  off  motionless  and  unconscious  in  a  deep  sleep, 
to  wake  after  a  while  with  renewed  vigour.  In  other  con- 
ditions the  life  ceases  more  entirely,  when  one  is  stunned 
or  falls  into  a  swoon  or  trance,  where  the  beating  of  the 
h:art  and  breathing  seem  to  stop,  and  the  body,  lying  deadly 
pale  and  insensible,  cannot  be  awakened ;  this  may  last  for 
minutes  or  hours,  or  even  days,  and  yet  after  all  the  patient 
revives.  Barbarians  are  apt  to  say  that  such  a  one  died  for 
a  while,  but  his  soul  came  back  again.  They  have  great 
difficulty  in  distinguishing  real  death  from  such  trances. 
They  will  talk  to  a  corpse,  try  to  rouse  ic  and  even  feed 
it,  and  only  when  it  becomes  noisome  and  must  be  got  rid 
of  from  among  the  living,  they  are  at  last  certain  that  the 
life  has  gone  never  to  return.  What,  then,  is  this  soul  or 
life  which  thus  goes  and  comes  in  sleep,  trance,  and  death  ? 
To  the  rude  philosopher,  the  question  seems  to  be  answered 
by  the  very  evidence  of  his  senses.  When  the  sleeper 
awakens  from  a  dream,  he  believes  he  has  really  somehow 
been  away,  or  that  other  people  have  come  to  him.  As  it 
is  well  known  by  experience  that  men's  bodies  do  not  go  on 
these  excursions,  the  natural  explanation  is  that  every  man's 
living  self  or  soul  is  his  phantom  or  image,  which  can  go  out 
of  his  body  and  see  and  be  seen  itself  in  dreams.  Even 
waking  men  in  broad  daylight  sometimes  see  these  human 
phantoms,  in  what  are  called  visions  or  hallucinations.  They 
are  further  led  to  believe  that  the  soul  does  not  die  with  the 


344  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

body,  but  lives  on  after  quitting  it,  for  although  a  man  may- 
be dead  and  buried,  his  phantom-figure  continues  to  appear 
to  the  survivors  in  dreams  and  visions.  That  men  have  such 
unsubstantial  images  belonging  to  them  is  familiar  in  other 
ways  to  the  savage  philosopher,  who  has  watched  their 
reflexions  in  still  water,  or  their  shadows  following  them 
about,  fading  out  of  sight  to  reappear  presently  somewhere 
else,  while  sometimes  for  a  moment  he  has  seen  their  living 
breath  as  a  faint  cloud,  vanishing  though  one  can  feel  that  it 
is  still  there.  Here  then  in  few  words  is  the  savage  and 
barbaric  theory  of  souls,  where  life,  mind,  breath,  shadow, 
reflexion,  dream,  vision,  come  together  and  account  for  one 
another  in  some  such  vague  confused  way  as  satisfies  the 
untaught  reasoner.  The  Zulu  will  say  that  at  death  a  man's 
shadow  departs  from  his  body  and  becomes  an  ancestral 
ghost,  and  the  widow  will  relate  how  her  husband  has 
come  in  her  sleep  and  threatened  to  kill  her  for  not  taking 
care  of  his  children  ;  or  the  son  will  describe  how  his 
father's  ghost  stood  before  him  in  a  dream,  and  the  souls 
of  the  two,  the  living  and  the  dead,  went  off  together 
to  visit  some  far-off  kraal  of  their  people.  The  Malays 
do  not  like  to  wake  a  sleeper,  lest  they  should  hurt 
him  by  disturbing  his  body  while  his  soul  is  out.  Tlie 
Ojibwas  describe  how  one  of  their  chiefs  died,  but  while 
they  were  watching  the  body,  on  the  third  night  his  shadow 
came  back  into  it,  and  he  sat  up  and  told  them  how 
he  had  travelled  to  the  River  of  Death,  but  was  stopped 
there  and  sent  back  to  his  people.  The  Nicaraguans,  when 
questioned  by  the  Spaniards  as  to  their  religion,  said  that 
when  a  man  or  woman  dies,  there  comes  out  of  their  mouth 
something  that  resembles  a  person  and  does  not  die,  but  the 
body  remains  here — it  is  not  precisely  the  heart  that  goes 
above,  but  the  breath  that  comes  from  their  mouth  and  is 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  345 

called  the  life.  The  lower  races  sometimes  avoid  such 
confusion  of  thoughts  as  this,  by  treating  the  breath,  the 
dream-ghost,  and  other  appearances,  as  being  separate  souls. 
Thus,  some  Greenlanders  reckoned  man  as  having  two  souls, 
his  shadow  and  his  breath;  and  the  Fijians  said  that  the 
"  dark  spirit "  or  shadow  goes  down  to  the  world  below,  but 
the  "  light  spirit "  or  reflexion  seen  in  water  stays  near  where 
he  dies.  The  reader  may  call  to  mind  examples  how  such 
notions  of  the  soul  lasted  on  hardly  changed  in  the  classic 
world ;  how  in  the  Iliad  the  dead  Patroklos  comes  to  the 
sleeping  Achilles,  who  tries  in  vain  to  grasp  him  with  loving 
hands,  but  the  soul  like  smoke  flits  away  below  the  earth;  or 
how  Hermotimos,  the  seer,  used  to  go  out  from  his  body,  till 
at  last  his  soul,  coming  back  from  a  spirit-journey,  found  that 
his  wife  had  burnt  his  corpse  on  the  funeral  pile,  and  that  he 
had  become  a  bodiless  ghost.  At  this  stage  the  idea  of  the 
soul  was  taken  up  by  the  Greek  philosophers  and  refined 
into  more  metaphysical  forms ;  the  life  and  mind  were 
separated  by  dividing  the  soul  into  two,  the  animal  and 
the  rational  soul,  and  the  conception  of  the  soul  as  of  thin 
ethereal  substance  gave  place  to  the  definition  of  the 
immaterial  soul,  which  is  mind  without  matter.  To  follow 
the  discussion  of  these  transcendental  problems  in  ancient 
and  modern  philosophy  will  occupy  the  student  of  meta- 
physics, but  the  best  proof  how  the  earlier  and  grosser  soul- 
theory  satisfied  the  uncultured  mind  is  that  to  this  day  it 
remains  substantially  the  belief  of  the  majority  of  the  hum.an 
race.  Even  among  the  most  civilized  nations  language  still 
plainly  shows  its  traces,  as  when  we  speak  of  a  person  being 
in  an  ecstasy  or  "  out  of  himself"  and  "  coming  back  to 
himself,"  or  w'hen  the  souls  of  the  dead  are  called  shades 
(that  is,  "  shadows  ")  or  spirits  or  ghosts  (that  is,  "  breaths  "), 
terms  which  are  relics  of  men's  earliest  theories  of  life. 


346  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap 

It  may  have  occurred  to  some  readers  that  the  savage 
philosopher  ought,  on  precisely  the  same  grounds,  to  believe 
his  horse  or  dog  to  have  a  soul,  a  phantom-likeness  of  its 
body.  This  is  in  fact  what  the  lower  races  always  have 
thought  and  think  still,  and  they  follow  the  reasoning  out  in 
a  way  that  surprises  the  modern  mind,  though  it  is  quite 
consistent  from  the  barbarian's  point  of  view.  If  a  human 
soul  seen  in  a  dream  is  a  real  object,  then  the  spear  and 
shield  it  carries  and  the  mantle  over  its  shoulders  are  real 
objects  too,  and  all  lifeless  things  must  have  their  thin  flitting 
shadow-souls.  Such  are  the  souls  of  canoes  and  weapons 
and  earthen  pots  that  the  Fijians  fancy  they  see  swimming 
down  the  stream  pellmell  into  the  life  to  come,  and  the 
ghostly  funeral  gifts  with  which  the  Ojibwas  imagine  the 
souls  of  the  dead  laden  on  their  journey  to  the  spirit-land — 
the  men  carrying  their  shadowy  guns  and  pipes,  the  women 
their  baskets  and  paddles,  the  little  boys  their  toy  bows  and 
arrows.  The  funeral  sacrifices,  which  in  one  shape  or  other 
are  remembered  or  carried  on  still  in  every  part  of  the  globe, 
give  us  the  clearest  idea  how  barbaric  religion  takes  in 
together  the  souls  of  men,  animals,  and  things.  In  Peru, 
where  a  dead  prince's  wives  would  hang  themselves  in  order 
to  continue  in  his  service,  and  many  of  his  attendants  would 
be  buried  for  him  to  take  their  souls  with  him,  people 
declared  that  they  had  seen  those  who  had  long  been  dead 
walking  about  with  their  sacrificed  wives,  and  adorned  wiih 
the  things  that  were  put  in  the  grave  for  them.  So  only  a 
few  years  since  in  Madagascar  it  was  said  that  the  ghost  of 
King  Radama  had  been  seen  dressed  in  a  uniform  buried 
with  him,  and  mounted  on  one  of  the  horses  that  were 
killed  at  his  tomb.  With  such  modern  instances  before  us, 
we  understand  the  ancient  funeral  rites  of  which  the  traces 
remain  in  the  burial-mounds  on  our  own  hills,  with  their 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  347 

skeletons  of  attendants  lying  round  the  chief,  and  the  bronze 
weapons  and  golden  arm-rings.  Classic  literature  abounds 
in  passages  which  show  how  truly  the  modern  barbarian 
represents  the  ancient ;  such  are  the  burning  of  Patroklos 
with  the  Trojan  captives  and  the  horses  and  hounds,  the  ac- 
count of  the  Scythian  funerals  by  Herodotus,  and  his  story  of 
Melissa's  ghost  coming  back  shivering  because  the  clothes 
had  not  been  burnt  for  her  at  her  burial.  There  are  dis- 
tricts in  India  where  the  suttee  or  "good wife"  is  even  now 
burnt  on  her  husband's  funeral  pile.  In  Europe,  long  after 
the  wives  and  slaves  ceased  thus  to  follow  their  master, 
the  warrior's  horse  was  still  solemnly  killed  at  his  grave 
and  buried  with  him.  This  was  done  as  lately  as  1781 
at  Treves,  when  a  general  named  Friedrich  Kasimir  was 
buried  according  to  the  rites  of  the  Teutonic  Order; 
and  in  England  the  pathetic  ceremony  of  leading  the  horse 
in  the  soldier's  funeral  is  the  last  remnant  of  the  ancient 
sacrifice.  Other  quaint  relics  of  the  old  funeral  customs 
are  to  be  met  with.  There  are  German  villages  where  the 
peasants  put  shoes  on  the  feet  of  the  corpse  (the  "  hell- 
shoon  "  with  which  the  old  Northmen  were  provided  for  the 
dread  journey  to  the  next  world),  and  elsewhere  a  needle 
and  thread  is  put  in  for  them  to  mend  their  torn  clothes, 
while  all  over  Europe,  at  an  Irish  wake  for  instance,  the 
dead  has  a  piece  of  money  put  in  his  hand  to  pay  his 
way  with. 

Mention  has  just  been  made  of  ancient  burial-mounds. 
Seeing  how  barbarians  reverence  and  fear  the  souls  of 
the  dead,  we  may  understand  the  care  they  take  of  their 
bodies,  leaving  the  hut  as  a  dwelling  for  the  dead,  or  drying 
the  corpse  and  setting  it  up  on  a  scaffold,  or  burying  it 
in  a  canoe  or  coffin,  or  building  up  a  strong  tomb  over  it, 
or  for  the  ashes,  if  the  people  have  taken    to   cremation. 


3+8  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Prehistoric  burial-places  in  our  own  country  are  still  won- 
ders to  us  for  the  labour  they  must  have  cost  their  barbaric 
builders.  Most  conspicuous  are  the  great  burial-mounds 
of  earth  or  cairns  of  stones.  Some  of  the  largest  of  these 
appear  to  date  from  the  stone-age.  But  their  use  lasted  on 
through  the  bronze-age  into  the  iron-age  ;  and  to  this  day 
in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  the  memory  of  the  old  cus- 
tom is  so  strong,  that  the  mourners,  as  they  may  not  build 
a  cairn  over  the  grave  in  the  churchyard, -will  sometimes  set 
up  a  little  one  where  the  funeral  procession  stops  on  the 
way.  Within  the  old  burial-mounds  or  barrows,  there  may 
be  a  cist  or  rude  chest  of  stone  slabs  for  the  interment,  or 
a  chamber  of  rude  stones,  sometimes  with  galleries.  Many 
such  stone  structures  are  to  be  seen  above  ground,  especially 
the  dolmens,  i.e.  stone  tables,  formed  of  three  or  four  great 
upright  stones,  with  a  top-stone  resting  on  them,  such  as 
Kit's  Coty  House,  not  far  from  Rochester.  The  remains 
dug  up  show  that  the  dolmens  were  tombs.  Another  kind 
of  early  stone  monuments  are  the  vien/iirs,  i.e.  long  stones 
set  up  singly.  It  happens  that  the  Khasias  of  north-east 
India  have  gone  on  to  modern  times  setting  up  such  rude 
pillars  as  memorials  of  the  dead,  so  that  it  may  be  reasonably 
guessed  that  those  in  Brittany  for  instance  had  the  same 
purpose.  Another  kind  of  rude  stone  structures  well  known  iu 
Europe  arc  the  cromlechs,  or  stone  circles,  formed  of  upright 
stones  in  a  ring,  such  as  Stanton  Drew,  not  far  from  Bristol. 
There  is  proof  that  the  stone  circles  have  often  to  do  with 
burials,  for  they  may  surround  a  burial-mound,  or  have  a 
dolmen  in  the  middle.  But  considering  how  tombs  are  apt 
to  become  temples  where  the  ghost  of  the  buried  chief  or 
prophet  is  worshipped,  it  is  likely  that  such  stone  circles 
should  also  serve  as  temples,  as  in  the  case  of  South  India 
at  the  present   time,  where  cocks  are  actually  sacrificed  to 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  349 

the  village  deity,  who  is  represented  by  the  large  stone  in 
the  centre  of  a  cromlech.  Rude  stone  monuments  may  be 
traced  in  a  remarkable  line  on  the  map,  from  India  across 
to  North  Africa,  and  up  the  west  side  of  Europe  (see 
Fergusson's  map.)  The  purpose  of  them  all  is  not  fully 
understood,  especially  the  lines  of  great  stones  at  Carnac 
and  Abury,  and  Stonehenge  with  its  great  hewn  upright 
and  cross  stones.  But,  as  has  been  here  shown,  there 
are  facts  which  go  far  to  explain  the  meaning  of  dol- 
mens, menhirs,  and  cromlechs.  The  fanciful  speculations 
of  the  old-fashioned  antiquaries,  such  as  that  the  dol- 
mens were  "  Druid's  altars,"  are  givmg  place  to  sober 
examination  such  as  the  reader  may  find  in  Lubbock's 
Prehistoric  Times. 

In  the  barbaric  religion,  which  has  left  such  clear  traces  in 
our  midst,  what  is  supposed  to  become  of  the  soul  after 
death  ?  The  answers  are  many,  but  they  agree  in  this,  that 
the  ghosts  must  be  somewhere  whence  they  can  come  to  visit 
the  living,  especially  at  night  time.  Some  tribes  say  that 
the  soul  continues  to  haunt  the  hut  where  it  died,  which 
is  accordingly  deserted  for  it ;  or  it  hovers  near  the  burial- 
ground,  which  is  sometimes  the  place  of  village  resort,  so 
that  the  souls  of  ancestors  can  look  on  kindly,  like  the  old 
people  sitting  round  the  village  green  watching  the 
youngsters  at  their  sports  ;  or  the  ghosts  flit  away  to  some 
region  of  the  dead  in  the  deep  forests  or  on  mountain-tops 
or  far-away  islands  over  the  sea,  or  up  on  the  plains  above 
the  sky,  or  down  in  the  depths  below  the  ground  where  the 
sun  descends  at  night.  Such  people  as  the  Zulus  can  show 
the  holes  where  one  can  descend  by  a  cavern  into  the 
under-world  of  the  dead,  an  idea  well  known  in  the  classic 
lake  Avernus,  and  which  has  lasted  on  to  our  own  day  in 
St.  Patrick's  Purgatory  in  Lough  Dearg.     By  a  train  of  fancy 


350  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

easy  to  follow,  it  is  often  held  that  the  home  of  the  dead  has 
to  do  with  that  far-west  region  where  the  sun  dies  at  . 
night.  Islanders  like  the  Maoris  imagine  the  souls  speed- 
ing away  from  the  westernmost  cape  of  New  Zealand,  just 
as  on  the  coast  of  Brittany,  where  Cape  Raz  stands  out 
westward  into  the  ocean,  there  is  the  "  bay  of  souls,"  the 
launching-place  where  the  departed  spirits  sail  off  across  the 
sea.  Many  rude  tribes  think  the  spirit-world  to  be  the 
pleasant  land  they  see  in  dreams,  where  the  dead  live  in 
their  spirit-villages,  and  there  is  game  and  fish  in  plenty,  and 
the  sun  always  shines  ;  but  others  fancy  it  the  dim  land  of 
shadows,  the  cavernous  under-world  of  night.  Both  ideas 
are  familiar  to  us  in  poetry — one  in  the  earthly  paradise  of 
the  legends,  the  other  in  such  passages  as  describe  Odysseus' 
visit  to  the  bloodless  ghosts  in  the  dreary  dusk  of  Hades,  or 
the  shadows  of  the  dead  in  Purgatory  wondering  to  see 
Dante  there,  whose  fleshly  body,  unlike  their  own  phantom 
forms,  stops  the  sunlight  and  casts  a  shadow. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  speaking  of  the  bodiless  souls  or 
ghosts  of  the  dead,  but  it  also  agrees  with  their  nature  that 
they  may  enter  into  new  bodies  and  live  again  on  earth.  In 
fact  one  of  the  most  usual  beliefs  of  the  lower  races  is  that 
the  souls  of  dead  ancestors  are  re-born  in  children,  an  idea 
which  explains  the  fact  of  children  having  a  likeness  to  the 
father's  or  mother's  family.  For  instance,  the  Yoruba  negroes 
greet  a  new-born  child  with  the  salute,  "Thou  art  come!" 
and  then  set  themselves  to  decide  what  ancestral  soul  has 
returned.  It  does  not,  however,  follow  that  the  body  in 
which  the  soul  takes  up  its  new  abode  should  be  human  :  it 
may  enter  into  a  bear  or  jackal,  or  fly  away  in  a  bird,  or,  as 
the  Zulus  think,  it  may  pass  into  one  of  those  harmless 
snakes  which  creep  about  in  the  huts,  liking  the  warmth  of 
the  family  hearth,  as  they  did  while  they  were  old  people, 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  351 

and  still  kindly  taking  the  food  given  by  their  grandchildren. 
In  such  simple  forms  there  appears  among  the  lower  races 
the  notion  of  transmigration  which  in  Brahmanism  and 
Buddhism  becomes  a  great  religious  doctrine. 

To  return  to  the  souls  of  the  dead  which  flit  to  and  fro  as 
ghosts.  These,  wherever  they  dwell,  are  naturally  believed 
to  keep  up  their  interest  in  the  living,  and  their  families  hold 
kindly  intercourse  with  them.  Thus,  in  North  America  a 
IMandan  woman  will  talk  by  the  hour  to  her  dead  husband 
or  child  ;  and  a  Chinese  is  bound  to  announce  any  family 
event,  such  as  a  wedding,  to  the  spirits  of  his  ancestors, 
present  in  their  memorial  tablets.  The  ghosts  of  dead 
kinsfolk  are  not  only  talked  to  but  fed;  the  family  offer  them 
morsels  of  food  at  their  own  meals,  and  hold  once  a  year  a 
feast  of  the  dead,  when  the  souls  of  ancestors  for  genera- 
tions back  are  fancied  present  and  invisibly  partaking  of  the 
food.  Such  offerings  to  the  dead  not  only  go  on  through 
the  savage  and  barbaric  world,  but  last  on  into  higher 
civilization,  their  traces  still  remaining  in  Europe.  The 
Russian  peasant,  who  fancies  the  souls  of  his  forefathers 
creeping  in  and  out  behind  the  saints'  pictures  on  the  little 
icon-shelf,  puts  crumbs  of  cake  there  for  them.  One  has 
only  to  cross  the  Channel  to  see  how  the  ancient  feast  of  the 
dead  still  keeps  its  primitive  character  in  the  festival  of  All 
Souls,  which  is  its  modern  representative ;  even  at  the 
cemetery  of  Pere-Lachaise  they  still  put  cakes  and  sweet- 
meats on  the  graves,  and  in  Brittany  the  peasants  that  night 
do  not  forget  to  make  up  the  fire  and  leave  the  fragments  of 
the  supper  on  the  table,  for  the  souls  of  the  dead  of  the 
family  who  will  come  to  visit  their  home.  All  this  belongs 
to  the  ancestor-worship  or  religion  of  the  divine  dead,  which 
from  remote  antiquity  has  been,  as  it  is  even  now,  the  main 
faith  of  the  larger  half  of  mankind.      But  this  worship  does 


352  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

not  come  only  from  family  affection,  for  the  ghosts  of  the 
dead  are  looked  upon  as  divine  beings,  powerful  both  for 
good  and  harm.  The  North  American  Indian,  who  prays  to 
the  spirits  of  his  forefathers  to  give  him  good  weather  or 
luck  in  hunting,  if  he  happens  to  fall  into  the  fire  will  believe 
he  has  neglected  to  make  some  offering  to  the  spirits,  and 
they  have  pushed  him  in  to  punish  him.  In  Guinea  the 
negroes  who  regularly  bring  food  and  drink  to  the  images  of 
their  dead  relatives  look  to  them  for  help  in  the  trials  of  life, 
and  in  times  of  peril  or  distress  crowds  of  men  and  women 
may  be  seen  on  the  hill-tops  or  the  skirts  of  the  forest,  calling 
in  the  most  piteous  and  touching  tones  on  the  spirits  of  their 
ancestors.  Such  accounts  help  us  to  understand  what  real 
meaning  there  is  in  the  ancestor-worship  which  to  a  Chinese 
or  Hindu  is  the  first  business  of  life,  and  how  the  pious  rites 
for  the  dead  ancestors  or  lares  formed  the  very  bond  which 
held  a  Roman  family  together.  Our  modern  minds  have 
rather  lost  the  sense  of  this,  and  people  often  think  the 
apotheosis  of  a  dead  Roman  emperor  to  have  been  a  mere 
act  of  insane  pride,  whereas  in  fact  it  was  an  idea  under- 
stood by  any  barbarian,  that  at  death  the  great  chief  should 
pass  into  as  great  a  deity. 

That  barbarians  should  imagine  the  manes  or  ghosts  of 
their  dead  to  be  such  active  powerful  beings,  arises  naturally 
from  their  notions  of  the  soul ;  but  this  requires  a  word  of 
explanation.  As  during  life  the  soul  exercises  power  over 
the  body,  so  after  death  when  become  a  ghost  it  is  believed 
to  keep  its  activity  and  power.  Such  ghosts  interfering  in  the 
affairs  of  the  living  are  usually  called  good  and  evil  spirits,  or 
demons.  There  is  no  clear  distinction  made  between  ghosts 
and  demons  ;  in  fact,  savages  generally  consider  the  demons 
who  help  or  plague  them  to  be  souls  of  dead  men.  Good  or 
evil,  the  man  keeps  after  death  the  temper  he  had  in  mortal 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  353 

life.  Not  long  ago,  in  South  India,  where  the  natives  are 
demon-worshippers,  it  was  found  that  they  had  lately  built  a 
shrine  of  which  the  deity  was  the  ghost  of  a  British  officer,  a 
mighty  hunter,  whose  votaries,  mindful  of  his  tastes  in  life, 
were  laying  on  his  altar  offerings  of  cheroots  and  brandy. 
The  same  man  will  be  a  good  spirit  to  his  friends  and  an 
evil  spirit  to  his  enemies,  and  even  to  his  own  people  he 
may  be  sometimes  kind  and  sometimes  cruel,  as  when  the 
Zulus  believe  that  the  shades  of  dead  warriors  of  their  tribe 
are  among  them  in  battle  and  lead  them  to  victory;  but  if 
these  ghostly  allies  are  angry  and  turn  their  backs,  the  fight 
will  go  against  them.  When  people  like  the  American 
Indians  or  the  African  negroes  believe  that  the  air  around 
them  is  swarming  with  invisible  spirits,  this,  is  not  nonsense. 
They  mean  that  life  is  full  of  accidents  which  do  not  happen 
of  themselves  ;  and  when  in  their  rude  philosophy  they  say 
the  spirits  make  them  happen,  this  is  finding  the  most  dis- 
tinct causes  which  their  minds  can  understand.  This  is 
most  plainly  seen  in  what  uncivilized  men  believe  about 
disease.  We  have  noticed  already  that  they  account  for 
fainting  or  trance  by  supposing  the  soul  to  leave  the  body 
for  a  time,  and  here  it  may  be  added  that  weakness  or 
failure  of  health  is  in  the  same  way  thought  to  be  caused 
by  the  soul  or  part  of  it  going  out.  In  these  cases,  to 
bring  the  soul  back  is  the  ordinary  method  of  cure,  as 
where  the  North  American  medicine-man  will  pretend  to 
catch  his  patient's  truant  soul  and  put  it  back  into  his 
head,  or  in  Fiji  a  sick  native  has  been  seen  lying  on  his 
back,  bawling  to  his  own  soul  to  come  back  to  him. 
But  in  other  conditions  of  disease  the  patient's  behaviour 
seems  rather  that  of  a  man  who  has  got  a  soul  in  him  that 
is  not  his  proper  soul.  In  any  painful  illness,  especially 
when  the  sick  man  is  tossing  and  shaking  in  fever,  or 
24 


354  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

writhing  in  convulsions  on  the  ground,  or  when  in  dehrium 
or  delusion  he  no  longer  thinks  his  own  thoughts  or  speaks 
with  his  own  voice,  but  with  distorted  features  and  strange, 
unearthly  tones  breaks  into  wild  raving,  then  the  explanation 
which  naturally  suggests  itself  is  that  another  spirit  has 
entered  into  or  possessed  him.  Any  one  who  watches  the 
symptoms  of  a  hysterical-epileptic  patient,  or  a  maniac, 
will  see  how  naturally  in  the  infancy  of  medical  science 
demoniacal  possession  came  to  be  the  accepted  theory  of 
disease,  and  the  exorcism  or  expulsion  of  these  demons 
the  ordinary  method  of  treatment.  It  is  so  among  savages, 
as  when  a  sick  Australian  will  believe  that  the  angry  ghost 
of  a  dead  man  has  got  into  him  and  is  gnawing  his  liver  ; 
or  when  in  a  Patagonian  skin  hut  the  wizards  may  be  seen 
dancing,  shouting,  and  drumming  to  drive  out  the  evil 
demon  from  a  man  down  with  fever.  Such  ideas  were 
at  home  in  ancient  history,  as  in  the  well-known  Egyptian 
memorial  tablet  of  the  time  of  Rameses  XII  (12th  cen- 
tury B.C.)  to  be  seen  in  the  Paris  Library,  and  translated 
in  Records  of  the  Past,  where  the  Egyptian  god  Khons 
was  sent  in  his  ark  to  cure  the  little  princess  Bentaresh 
of  the  evil  movement  in  her  limbs.  When  he  came,  the 
demon  said,  "  Great  god  who  chasest  demons,  I  am  thy 
slave,  I  will  go  to  the  place  whence  I  came."  Then  they 
made  a  sacrifice  for  that  spirit,  and  he  went  in  peace,  leav- 
ing the  patient  cured.  As  far  back  as  the  history  of  medicine 
reaches,  we  find  the  contest  between  this  old  spirit-theory  of 
disease  and  the  newer  ideas  of  the  physicians,  with  their  diet 
and  drugs  ;  and  though  the  doctors  have  now  taken  the  upper 
hand,  yet  in  any  nation  short  of  the  most  civilized  the 
earlier  notions  may  still  be  found  unchanged.  When  Prof. 
Bastian,  the  anthropologist,  was  travelling  in  Burma,  his  cook 
had  an  apoplectic  fit,  and  the  wife  was  doing  her  best  to 


xiv.J  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  355 

appease  the  offended  demon  who  had  brought  it  on,  by- 
putting  little  heaps  of  coloured  rice  for  him,  and  prayers, 
"  Oh,  ride  him  not !  Ah,  let  him  go  I  Crip  him  not  so 
hard!  Thou  shalt  have  rice  !  Ah,  how  good  that  tastes  !" 
In  countries  where  this  theory  of  disease  prevails,  the  patients' 
own  delusions  work  in  with  and  confirm  it  in  most  striking 
ways.  As  fully  persuaded  as  the  bystanders  of  the  reality  of 
their  demons,  they  will  recognise  them  in  the  figures  they 
dream  of  or  see  in  their  delirium,  and  what  is  more,  under 
delusion  or  diseased  imagination  they  so  lose  their  sense  of 

being  themselves,  as  to  talk  with  what  they  believe  to  be  the 

»  .    .  .       . 

voice  of  the  demon  withm  them,  answenng  m  its  name,  just 

as  the  sick  princess  did  in  Syria  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Englishmen  in  India  and  the  far  East  often  have  the 
opportunity  of  being  present  at  these  strange  old-world 
scenes,  and  hearing  the  demon-voice  whisper,  or  squeak,  or 
roar,  out  of  the  patient's  mouth,  that  he  is  the  spirit  so-and- 
so,  and  tell  what  he  is  come  for ;  at  last,  when  satisfied  with 
what  he  wants,  or  subdued  by  the  exorcist's  charms  and 
threats,  the  demon  consents  to  go,  and  then  the  patient 
leaves  off  his  frantic  screams  and  raving,  his  convulsive 
writhing  quiets  down,  and  he  sinks  into  an  exhausted  sleep, 
often  relieved  foi  a  time  when  the  malady  is  one  where 
mental  treatment  is  effective.  Nor  is  it  necessary  to  go  to 
India  or  China  for  illustrations  of  this  early  theory  of  disease. 
In  Spain  the  pritsts  still  go  on  exorcising  devils  out  of 
the  mouths  and  feet  of  epileptic  patients,  though  this  will 
probably  cease  in  a  few  years,  when  it  is  known  how 
successfully  that  hitherto  intractable  disease  may  be  treated 
with  potassium  bromide. 

In  other  ways  the  notion  of  spirits  serves  to  account  for 
whatever  happens.  That  certain  unusually  fierce  wolves  or 
vigers  are  "  man-eaters  "  is  explained  by  the  belief  that  the 


356  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

souls  of  wicked  men  go  out  at  night  and  enter  into  wild- 
beast  bodies  to  prey  on  their  fellow-men  ;  these  are  the 
man-tigers  and  \vere-woIves — that  is,  "man-wolves" — which 
still  live  in  the  popular  superstition  of  India  and  Russia. 
Again,  we  all  know  that  many  living  people  grow  pale 
and  bloodless  and  pine  away  ;  in  Slavonic  countries  this 
is  thought  to  be  caused  by  blood-sucking  nightmares, 
whose  dreadful  visits  the  patient  is  conscious  of  in  his 
sleep,  and  these  creatures  are  ingeniously  accounted  for 
as  demon-souls  dwelling  in  corpses,  whose  blood  accord- 
ingly keeps  fluid  long  after  death  ;  they  call  them  vam- 
pires. It  has  been  suggested  that  primitive  men  gained 
from  their  ideas  of  souls  and  spirits  their  first  clear  notions 
of  a  cause  of  anything,  and  this  is  at  any  rate  so  far  true 
that  rude  tribes  do  find  in  the  doings  of  spirits  around 
them  a  reason  for  every  stumble  over  a  stone,  every  odd 
sound  or  feeling,  every  time  they  lose  their  way  in  the 
woods.  Thus,  in  the  scores  of  good  and  evil  chances  which 
meet  the  barbarian  from  hour  to  hour,  he  finds  work  for 
many  friendly  or  unfriendly  spirits.  Especially  his  own 
luck  or  fortune  takes  shape  in  a  guardian  spirit  who 
belongs  to  him  and  goes  about  with  him.  This  may  be, 
as  the  rude  Tasmanians  have  thought,  a  dead  father's  soul 
looking  after  his  son,  or  such  a  patron-spirit  as  the  North 
American  warrior  fasts  for  till  he  sees  it  in  a  dream  ;  or 
it  may  be,  like  tlie  genius  of  the  ancienr  Roman,  a  spirit 
born  with  him  for  a  companion  and  guardian  through  life. 
Tlie  genius  of  Augustus  was  a  divine  being  to  be  prayed  and 
sacrificed  to,  but  how  we  moderns  have  left  behind  the 
thoughts  of  the  ancients,  while  still  using  their  words,  is 
curiously  seen  in  the  changed  meaning  with  which  we  now 
talk  of  the  genius  of  Handel  or  Turner,  Not  less  striking 
is  the  change  which  has  come  in  our  thoughts  about  the 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  357 

world  around  us,  the  sky  and  the  sea,  the  mountains  and 
the  forests.  We  have  learnt  to  watch  the  operation  of 
physical  laws  of  gravity  and  heat,  of  growth  and  decomposi- 
tion, and  it  is  only  with  an  effort  that  we  can  get  our 
imagination  back  to  the  remote  days  when  men  looked  to 
an  infinite  multitude  of  spiritual  beings  as  the  causes  of 
nature.  Yet  this  belief  arises  plainly  from  the  theory  of  the 
soul,  for  these  spirits  are  looked  upon  as  souls  working 
nature  much  as  human  souls  work  human  bodies.  It  is  they 
who  cast  up  the  fire  in  the  volcano,  tear  up  the  forest  in  the 
hurricane,  spin  the  canoe  round  in  the  whirlpool,  inhabit  the 
trees  and  make  them  grow.  The  lower  races  not  only  talk 
of  such  nature-spirits,  but  d.al  with  them  in  a  thoroughly 
personal  way  which  shows  how  they  are  modelled  on 
human  souls.  Modern  travellers  have  seen  North  Americans 
paddling  their  canoes  past  a  dangerous  place  on  the  river 
and  throwing  in  a  bit  of  tobacco  with  a  prayer  to  the  river- 
spirit  to  let  them  pass.  An  African  woodcutter  who  has  made 
the  first  cut  at  a  great  tree  has  been  known  to  take  the  precau- 
tion of  pouring  some  palm-oil  on  the  ground,  that  the  angry 
tree-spirit  coming  out  may  stop  to  lick  it  up,  while  the 
man  runs  for  his  life.  The  state  of  mind  to  which  these 
nature-spirits  belong  must  have  been  almost  as  clearly 
remembered  by  the  Greeks,  when  they  could  still  fancy  the 
nymphs  of  the  lovely  groves,  and  springs,  and  grassy  mea- 
dows, coming  up  to  the  council  of  the  Olympian  gods  and 
sitting  around  on  the  polished  seats,  or  the  dryads  growing 
with  the  leafy  pines  and  oaks,  and  uttering  screams  of  pain 
when  the  woodman's  axe  strikes  the  trunk.  The  Anglo-Saxon 
dictionary  preserves  the  curious  word  woodmare  for  an  echo 
(wudu-mcer  =^  wood-nymph),  a  record  of  the  time  when 
Englishmen  believed,  as  barbarians  do  still,  that  the  echo  is 
the  voice  of  an  answering  spirit ;  the  word  mare,  for  spirit  or 


358  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

demon,  appears  also  in  nigh/mare,  the  throttling  dream- 
demon  who  was  as  real  to  our  forefathers  as  he  is  to  the 
natives  of  Australia  now.  Superseded  by  physical  science, 
the  old  nature-spirits  still  find  a  home  in  poetry  and  folk- 
lore ;  the  Loreley  is  only  a  modernized  version  of  the  river- 
demon  who  drowns  the  swimmer  in  the  whirlpool ;  the  heal- 
ing water-spirits  of  the  old  sacred  wells  have  only  taken 
saints'  names,  the  little  elves  and  fairies  of  the  woods  are 
only  dim  recollections  of  the  old  forest-spirits.  It  may  surprise 
the  readers  of  Huxley's  Physiography  to  recognise  in  fairy- 
tales the  nature-spirits  in  whose  personal  shape  prehistoric 
man  imagined  the  forces  of  nature. 

Above  the  commonalty  of  souls,  demons,  and  nature- 
spirits,  the  religions  of  all  tribes  recognise  higher  spirits,  or 
gods.  Where  ancestor-worship  prevails,  the  souls  of  great 
chiefs  and  warriors  or  any  celebrated  persons  may  take  this 
divine  rank.  Thus,  the  Mongols  worship  as  good  deities  the 
great  Genghis  Khan  and  his  princely  family.  The  Chinese 
declare  that  Pang,  who  is  worshipped  by  carpenters  and 
builders  as  their  patron  divinity,  was  a  famous  artificer  who 
lived  long  ago  in  the  province  of  Shangtung,  while  Kwang-tae, 
the  War-god,  was  a  distinguished  soldier  who  lived  under 
the  Han  dynasty.  The  idea  of  the  divine  ancestor  may  even 
be  carried  far  enough  to  reach  supreme  deity,  as  where  the 
Zulus,  working  back  from  ghostly  ancestor  to  ancestor,  talk 
of  Unkulunkulu,  the  Old-Old-one,  as  the  creator  of  the  world ; 
or  the  Brazilian  tribes  say  that  Tamoi  the  Grandfather,  the 
first  man,  dwelt  among  them  and  taught  them  to  till  the  soil, 
at  last  rising  to  the  sky,  where  he  will  receive  their  souls 
after  death.  Among  the  nature-spirits  also  the  barbarian 
plainly  perceives  great  gods  who  rule  the  universe.  The 
highest  deity  of  the  African  negroes  is  the  Sky,  who  gives  the 
rain  and  makes  the  grass  grow,  and  when  they  wake  in  the 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  359 

morning  they  thank  him  for  opening  the  door  to  let  the 
sun  in.  Thus  they  are  at  the  same  stage  of  thought  as  our 
Aryan  ancestors,  whose  great  deity  Dyu,  sung  of  in  the 
hymns  of  the  Veda,  was  at  once  the  solid  personal  Sky  that 
rains  and  thunders,  and  the  Heaven-god  who  animates  it. 
This  deity  remains  even  in  name  in  the  Greek  Zeus,  and 
Latin  Jupiter,  the  Heaven-father,  both  religions  keeping 
up  its  double  sense  of  sky  and  sky  god,  belonging  to  the 
barbaric  theology  which  could  see  massive  life  in  the  over- 
arching firmament,  and  could  explain  that  life  by  an  in- 
dwelling deit}^,  modelled  on  the  human  soul.  We  may 
best  understand  what  was  meant  by  the  Hea\en-god,  if  we 
think  of  him  as  the  soul  of  the  sky.  Among  all  the  relics 
of  barbaric  religion  which  surround  us,  few  are  more  striking 
than  the  phrases  which  still  recognise  as  a  deity  the  living 
sky^,  as  ''  Heaven  forgive  me  !  "  "  The  vengeance  of  Heaven 
will  overtake  him."  The  rain  and  thunder  are  mostly  taken 
as  acts  of  the  Heaven-god,  as  where  Zeus  hurls  the  thunder- 
bolt and  sends  the  showers.  But  some  peoples  have  a 
special  Rain  god,  like  the  Khonds  of  Orissa,  who  pray  to 
Pidzu  Pennu  that  he  will  pour  down  the  waters  through  his 
sieve  upon  their  fields.  Others  have  a  special  Thunder- 
god,  like  the  Yorubas,  who  say  it  is  Shango  who  casts  down 
with  the  lightning-flash  and  the  thunder  clap  his  thunder- 
axes,  which  are  the  stone  celts  they  dig  up  in  the  ground  ; 
we  English  keep  up  the  memory  of  the  god  Thunder  or 
Thor  in  our  word  Thursday,  which  is  a  translation  of 
Dies  Jovis.  In  barbaric  theology,  Earth,  the  mother  of 
all  things,  takes  her  place,  as  when  the  pious  Ojibwa 
Indian  digging  up  his  medicine-plants  is  careful  to  leave 
an  offering  for  great-grandmother  Earth.  No  fancy  of 
nature  can  be  plainer  than  that  the  Heaven-father  and 
the  Earth -mother    are    the    universal    parents,    nor    could 


36o  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

any  ceremony  acknowledge  them  more  naturally  than  the 
Chinese  marriage  when  bride  and  bridegroom  prostrate 
themselves  before  Heaven  and  Earth.  The  Earth-goddess 
IS  clear  in  classic  religion,  Demeter,  Terra  Mater,  and  per- 
haps the  last  trace  of  her  worship  among  ourselves  may  be 
the  leaving  of  the  last  handful  of  corn-ears  standing  in  the 
field  or  the  carrying  it  in  triumph  in  the  harvest-home.  In 
modern  times  it  is  among  the  negroes  of  the  Guinea  coast 
that  the  clearest  idea  of  the  Sea-god  is  to  be  found,  when 
the  native  kings,  praying  him  not  to  be  boisterous,  would 
have  rice  and  cloth  and  bottles  of  rum,  and  even  slaves,  cast 
into  the  sea  as  sacrifices.  So  a  Greek  or  Roman  general, 
before  embarking  on  the  dangerous  waves,  would  sacrifice  a 
bull  to  Poseidon  or  Neptune.  To  men  who  could  thus  look 
on  the  sky,  earth,  and  sea  as  animated,  intelligent  beings, 
the  Sun,  giver  of  light  and  life  to  the  world,  rising  and  crossing 
the  sky  and  descending  at  night  into  the  under-world  whence 
he  arose,  has  the  clearest  divine  personality.  There  is  a 
quaint  simplicity  in  the  account  which  not  many  years  ago 
a  Samoyed  woman  gave  of  her  daily  prayers  ;  at  sunrise, 
bowing  to  the  sun,  she  said,  "  When  thou,  God,  risest,  I  too 
rise  from  my  bed  !  "  and  in  the  evening,  "When  thou,  God, 
goest  down,  I  too  get  me  to  rest."  As  far  back  as  ancient 
history  reaches,  the  Sun-god  appears,  as  where,  in  the  pictures 
on  Egyptian  mummy-cases,  Ra,  the  Sun,  is  seen  travelling 
in  his  boat  through  the  upper  and  lower  regions  of  the 
universe.  Every  morning  those  modern  ancients,  the 
Brabmans,  may  be  seen  standing  on  one  foot  with  their 
hands  held  out  before  them  and  their  faces  turned  to  the  east, 
adoring  the  Sun  :  among  the  oldest  prayers  which  have  come 
down  unchanged  from  the  old  Ar)an  world  is  that  which 
they  daily  repeat,  *'  Let  us  meditate  on  the  desirable  light 
of  the  divine  Sun ;  may  he  rouse  our  minds  !  "     The  Moon- 


xrv.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  361 

god  or  goddess  marks  the  festivals  of  rude  forest  tribes 
who  dance  by  the  Hght  of  the  full  moon.  It  is  not  un- 
common for  the  Moon  to  rank  above  the  Sun,  as  perhaps 
for  astronomical  reasons  was  the  case  in  ancient  Babylonia ; 
but  more  usually  the  Sun  stands  first,  as  seem.s  to  us  more 
natural ;  and  commonly  Sun  and  Moon  are  looked  on  as  a 
pair,  brother  and  sister,  or  husband  and  wife.  It  is  easy  to 
understand  why  at  the  famous  temple  in  Syria,  Sun  and 
Moon  had  no  images  like  the  other  gods,  because  they 
themselves  were  to  be  seen  by  all  men.  No  doubt  this  is 
why  of  all  the  old  nature-gods  they  alone  still  have  personal 
obeisance  done  to  them  among  us  to  this  day ;  in  Germany 
or  France  one  may  still  see  the  peasant  take  off  his  hat  to 
the  rising  sun,  and  in  England  the  new  moon  is  saluted  with 
a  bow  or  curtsey,  as  well  as  the  curious  practice  of  "  turning 
one's  silver,"  which  seems  a  rjlic  of  the  offering  of  the 
moon's  proper  metal.  Fire,  though  hardly  a  deity  of  the 
first  order,  is  looked  upon  as  a  personal  being,  and  wor- 
shipped both  for  the  good  and  harm  it  does  to  man,  and  as 
minister  of  the  greater  gods.  Among  the  Aryan  nations, 
the  first  word  of  the  Veda  is  the  name  oi  ^gni,  the  Fire- 
god  (Latin  Ignis),  the  divine  priest  of  sacrifice ;  the  Parsis, 
representatives  of  the  religion  of  ancient  Persia,  whose  most 
sacred  place  is  the  temple  at  the  burning  wells  of  Baku 
(p.  273),  are  typical  fire-worshippers ;  among  the  old  Greeks 
Hestia,  the  sacred  hearth,  was  fed  with  fat  and  libations  of 
sweet  wine,  and  her  name  and  worship  went  on  in  Rome  in 
the  temple  of  Vesta,  with  the  eternal  fire  in  her  sanctuary. 
The  Wind-gods  are  as  well  known  to  the  North  American 
Indians  and  the  South  Sea  Islanders  as  they  were  to  the 
Greeks,  from  whose  religion  they  have  come  down  to  us  so 
that  every  ploughman's  child  hears  of  rude  Boreas  and  gentle 
Zephyr.      To  conclude   the  list,   the   Rivers  have  seemed 


362  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

beings  so  far  greater  tlian  the  little  spirits  of  the  brooks, 
that  they  often,  like  Skamandros  and  Spercheios,  had  temples 
and  priests  of  their  own  ;  men  swore  by  them,  for  they 
could  seize  and  drown  the  perjurer  in  their  floods,  and  to 
the  Hindus  still  the  most  awful  of  oaths  is  by  a  divine  river, 
above  all  the  Ganges. 

Such  a  list  of  gods,  the  vast  souls  of  the  sky,  earth  and 
sea,  of  the  sun  and  moon,  and  the  rest  of  the  great  powers 
of  nature,  each  with  his  own  divine  personality,  his  own 
rational  purpose  and  work  in  the  world,  goes  far  to  explain 
polytheism,  as  it  is  found  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe.  The 
explanation  cannot,  however,  be  complete,  because  both  the 
names  and  natures  of  many  gods  have  become  confused.  A 
deity  worshipped  in  several  temples  is  apt  to  split  up  into 
several  deities,  and  men  go  on  worshipp'ng  these  by  different 
names  after  their  first  sense  is  forgotten.  Among  nations  who 
have  become  blended  by  alliance  or  conquest,  the  religions 
also  mix,  and  the  vaiious  gods  lose  their  distinct  personality. 
The  classical  dictionary  is  full  of  examples  of  all  this.  The 
thundering  sky  and  the  rainy  sky,  Jupiter  Tonans  and 
Jupiter  Pluvius,  came  to  be  adored  like  two  distinct  beings. 
The  Latin  Neptunus  and  the  Greek  Poseidon,  put  together 
into  one  because  both  were  sea-gods,  form  a  curious  divine 
compound.  Under  the  name  of  Mercurius,  god  of  trade, 
comes  in  another  ancient  deity,  the  Greek  Hermes, 
messenger  of  the  gods,  leader  of  the  dead  into  the  land 
of  Hades,  god  of  thieves  and  merchants,  of  writing  and 
science,  who  himself  bears  traces  of  having  been  pieced 
together  out  of  yet  older  deities,  among  them  the  writing- 
god  of  ancient  Egypt,  the  ibis-headed  Thoth.  This  will 
give  a  notion  of  the  confusion  which  begins  in  reHgion 
as  soon  as  the  worshippers  cease  to  think  of  a  deity  by 
his    first    meaning   and  purpose,    and    only   know   of  him 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  363 

as  the  god  so-and-so,  whose  image  stands  in  such-and- 
such  a  temple.  The  wonder,  is  not  that  the  origin  of  so 
many  ancient  gods  is  now  hard  to  make  out,  but  that  so 
many  show  so  clearly  as  they  do  what  they  were  at  first,  a 
divine  ancestor,  or  a  sun,  or  sky,  or  river.  The  gods  of 
barbaric  religion  also  show  plainly  at  work,  in  the  minds  of 
the  rude  theologians,  a  thought  destined  to  vast  importance 
in  higher  stages  of  civilization.  Regarding  the  world  as 
the  battle-ground  of  good  and  evil  spirits,  some  religions  see 
these  ranged  in  two  contending  armies  with  higher  good  and 
evil  gods  over  them,  and  above  all  the  sovereign  good  deity 
and  evil  deity.  This  system  of  dualism,  as  it  is  called,  is  worked 
out  in  the  contest  between  the  powers  of  light  and  darkness, 
under  Ormuzd,and  Ahriman,  the  good  and  evil  spirits,  in 
the  religion  of  ancient  Persia.  In  barbaric  stages  of  religion 
there  appears  also  in  rude  forms  the  system  of  divine 
government,  so  well  known  in  the  faiths  of  more  cultured 
nations.  As  among  the  worshippers  themselves  there  are 
common  men,  and  chiefs  above  them,  and  great  rulers 
or  kings  above  all,  with  high  and  low  ofticers  to  do  their 
bidding;  so  among  their  gods  they  frame  schemes  of  lower 
and  higher  ranks  of  deities,  with  above  all  the  majesty 
of  a  supreme  deity.  It  is  not  agreed  everywhere  which  god 
is  to  have  this  supremacy.  As  has  been  already  said,  men 
who  look  to  the  souls  of  the  dead  as  their  gods  may  hold 
even  the  highest  divinity  to  be  such  a  soul,  an  ancestor 
expanded  into  creator  and  ruler  of  the  world.  Often,  and 
naturally,  the  heaven-god  is  looked  upon  as  supreme  creator 
and  controller  of  the  universe.  Among  the  nations  of  West 
Africa,  some  say  Heaven  does  his  will  through  his  servants, 
the  lesser  spirits  of  the  air,  but  others  think  hinx  too  high 
above  to  trouble  himself  much  with  earthly  things.  The 
doctrine  of  the  Congo  negroes  shows  a  thoughtful,  if  not  a 


364  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

happy,  philosophy  of  hfe.  They  say  it  is  the  crowd  of  good 
and  evil  spirits,  souls  of  the  departed,  who  are  still  active  in 
the  concerns  of  life,  and  mostly  the  evil  spirits  have  the 
best  of  it ;  but  now  and  then,  when  they  have  made  the 
world  unbearable,  the  great  Heaven  rouses  himself,  terrifies 
the  bad  demons  with  his  thunder,  and  lets  fly  his  thunder- 
bolts at  the  most  obstinate  ;  then  he  goes  back  to  rest,  and 
lets  the  spirits  rule  as  before.  A  more  cheerful  view  of 
nature-spirits  working  beneath  heaven  is  familiar  to  us  in 
the  Homeric  court  of  the  gods  on  Olympus,  where  Zeus,  the 
personal  sky,  sits  enthroned  above,  holding  sway  over  the 
lower  gods  of  earth,  air,  and  sea.  In  other  countries  the 
Sun  may  be  looked  upon  as  supreme,  as  he  is  among  many 
hill-tribes  of  India,  where  he  rules  over  the  gods  of  the 
forest  and  the  plain,  the  tribe-gods,  and  the  ancestral  ghosts. 
Or  there  may  be,  as  among  the  native  tribes  of  North 
America,  a  Great  Spirit,  who  is,  as  it  were,  the  soul  of  the 
universe,  which  he  created  and  still  controls,  supreme  over 
even  such  mighty  nature-gods  as  the  sun  and  moon.  When  the 
reader  goes  on  to  study  the  religion  and  philosophy  of  the 
ancient  civilized  world,  he  will  find  men's  thoughts  working 
in  these  same  two  ways  toward  pantheism  or  monotheism, 
according  as  they  conceive  the  whole  universe  as  one  \ast 
body  animated  by  one  divine  soul,  or  raise  to  the  same 
divine  height  the  one  deity  who  reigns  supreme  over  the 
rest.  It  lies  beyond  our  range  to  follow  this  argument 
further  here. 

Let  us  now  look  at  the  chief  acts  of  barbaric  worship, 
which  are  not  hard  to  understand  when  it  is  borne  in  mind 
that  the  deities  they  arc  paid  to  are  actual  human  souls,  or 
transformed  human  souls,  or  beings  modelled  on  human 
souls.  Even  among  savages,  prayer  is  already  found ;  in- 
deed, nothing  could  be  more  natural  than  that  the  worshipper 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT  WORLD.  365 

should  address  with  respectful  words  and  entreaties  for  help 
a  divine  being  who  is  perhaps  his  own  grandfather.  The 
prayers  of  barbarians  have  often  been  listened  to  and  written 
down.  Thus  among  the  Zulus,  the  sacrificer  says  :  "  There 
is  your  bullock,  ye  spirits  of  our  people.  I  pray  for  a  healthy 
body  that  I  may  live  comfortably,  and  thou  so-and-so,  treat 
me  with  mercy,  and  thou  so-and-so"  (mentioning  by  name  the 
dead  of  the  family).  The  following  is  part  of  a  prayer  of  the 
Khonds,  when  offering  a  human  sacrifice  to  the  Earth- 
goddess  :  "  By  our  cattle,  our  flocks,  our  pigs,  and  our  grain 
we  procured  a  victim  and  offered  a  sacrifice.  Do  you  now 
enrich  us.  Let  our  herds  be  so  numerous  that  they  cannot 
be  housed ;  let  children  so  abound  that  the  care  of  them 
shall  be  too  much  for  the  parents,  as  shall  be  seen  by  their 
burnt  hands ;  let  our  heads  ever  strike  against  brass  pots 
innumerable  hanging  from  our  roofs  ;  let  the  rats  form  their 
nests  of  shreds  of  scarlet  cloth  and  silk ;  let  all  the  kites  in 
the  country  be  seen  in  the  trees  of  our  village,  from  beasts 
being  killed  there  every  day.  We  are  ignorant  of  what  it 
is  good  to  ask  for.  You  know  what  is  good  for  us.  Give 
it  to  us."  These  two  specimens  of  prayers  are  chosen 
because  they  show  how  closely  prayer  is  connected  with 
sacrifice,  how  the  offering  is  brought  and  the  favour  asked 
with  it,  just  as  would  be  done  to  a  living  chief.  Barbaric 
sacrifices  are  not  mere  formal  tokens  of  respect  ;  they 
are  mostly  food,  and  will  be  consumed  by  the  divinity, 
though  he,  being  a  spirit,  is  apt  to  take  only  the  spirit, 
flavour,  or  essence,  of  the  viands ;  or  he  snuffs  up  the 
steam  or  smoke  as  it  ascends  from  the  altar  fire,  a 
spiritual  food  of  much  the  same  thin  ethereal  substance 
which  the  spirit  or  god  himself  is  thought  to  be  of.  It 
IS  in  the  higher  religions  that  the  sacrificial  rite  loses  its 
grosser  sense  of  feeding   the  deity,   so  that  although    the 


366  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

drink-ofiering  is  still  poured  out  and  the  bullock  burnt  on 
the  altar,  the  act  has  passed  into  the  giving  up  of  some- 
thing prized  by  the  worshipper,  and  a  sign  of  adoration 
acceptable  to  the  god. 

There  are  several  ways  in  which  the  worshipper  can  hold 
personal  intercourse  with  his  deities.  These,  being  souls  or 
spirits,  are  of  course  to  be  seen  at  times  in  dreams  and 
visions,  especially  by  their  own  priests  or  seers,  who  thus 
get  (or  pretend  to  get)  divine  answers  or  oracles  from  them. 
Being  a  soul,  the  god  can  also  enter  a  human  body,  and  act 
and  speak  through  it,  and  thus  hysterical  and  epileptic 
symptoms,  which  we  have  seen  to  be  ascribed  to  an  evil 
demon  possessing  the  patient,  are  looked  on  more  favourably 
when  the  spirit  is  considered  to  be  a  deity  come  to  inspire 
his  minister  and  talk  by  his  voice.  The  convulsions,  the 
unearthly  voice  in  which  the  possessed  priest  answers  in  the 
name  of  the  deity  within,  and  his  falling  into  stupor  when 
his  god  departs,  all  fit  together,  and  in  all  quarters  of  the 
world  the  oracle-priests  and  diviners  by  familiar  spirits  seem 
really  diseased  in  body  and  mind,  and  deluded  by  their 
own  feelings,  as  well  as  skilled  in  cheating  their  votaries 
with  sham  symptoms  and  cunning  answers.  The  inspira- 
tion or  breathing-in  of  a  spirit  into  the  body  of  a  priest 
or  seer  appears  to  such  people  a  mechanical  action,  like 
pouring  water  into  a  jug.  Also,  as  in  the  ordinary  trans- 
migration of  souls,  a  deity  is  considered  able  to  enter  into 
the  body  of  an  animal,  as  when  he  flies  from  place  to 
place  in  the  form  of  a  sacred  bird,  or  lives  in  the  divine 
snake  fed  and  worshipped  among  the  negroes  of  the  Slave 
coast.  This  leads  on  to  a  belief  which  seems  still  stranger 
to  our  minds.  The  modern  Englishman  wonders  that  a 
human  being,  however  ignorant,  should  prostrate  himself 
before  a  stake  stuck  in  the  ground  or  a  stone  picked  up  by 


xiv.J  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  367 

the  wayside,  and  even  talk  to  it  and  offer  it  food  :  but  when 
the  African  or  Hindu  explains  that  he  believes  this  stock  or 
stone  to  be  a  receptacle  in  which  a  divine  spirit  has  for  a 
time  embodied  itself,  this  shows  that  there  is  a  rational 
meaning  in  the  act.  Images  of  gods,  from  the  rudely  carved 
figures  of  ancestors  which  the  Ostyaks  set  up  in  their  huts, 
to  the  Greek  statues  shaped  by  Phidias  or  Praxiteles  to 
represent  the  heaven-god  or  the  sun-god,  are  mostly  formed 
in  the  likeness  of  man — an  additional  proof  of  how  these 
nature-gods  are  modelled  on  human  beings.  When  such 
images  stand  to  represent  gods,  the  worshipper  may  look  on 
them  as  mere  signs  or  portraits,  but  commonly  he  is  led  by 
his  spirit-philosophy  to  treat  them  as  temporary  bodies  for 
the  deities.  A  Tahitian  priest,  when  asked  about  his  carved 
wooden  idol,  would  explain  that  his  god  was  not  always  in 
the  image,  but  only  now  and  then  flew  to  it  in  the  body  of 
a  sacred  bird,  and  at  times  would  coihe  out  of  the  idol  and 
enter  his  own  (the  priest's)  body,  to  give  divine  oracles  by 
his  voice.  This  takes  us  back  to  the  times  when,  fifteen 
hundred  years  ago,  ]\Iinucius  Felix  describes  the  heathen 
gods  entering  into  their  idols  and  fattening  on  the  steam  of 
the  altars,  or  creeping  as  thin  spirits  into  the  bodies  of  men, 
to  distort  their  limbs  and  drive  them  mad,  or  making  their 
own  priests  rave  and  whirl  about.  Lastly,  rude  tribes  may 
believe  in  and  worship  spirits  without  having  come  to  build 
houses  for  them  and  set  up  tables  for  their  food.  Yet 
such  temples  and  altars  appear  far  back  in  barbaric  re- 
ligion, and  remain  still  with  the  thoroughly  human  character 
of  the  worship  as  plain  as  ever  in  them  ;  as  when  in  India 
the  image  of  Vishnu  is  washed  and  dressed  by  his  attendants, 
and  set  up  in  the  place  of  honour  in  his  temple  with  a 
choice  feast  before  him,  and  musicians  and  dancing  girls 
to  divert  him.    This  is  the  more  instructive  to  us,  because  we 


368  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

know  Vishnu  before  his  original  meaning  was  so  spoilt,  when 
he  was  a  sun -god,  an  animating  principle  or  soul  of  the 
sun  in  personal  human  shape,  and  thus  a  remnant  of  pre- 
historic natural  philosophy. 

We  have  hitherto  only  looked  at  barbaric  religion  as  such 
an  early  system  of  natural  philosophy,  and  have  said  nothing 
of  the  moral  teaching  which  now  seems  so  essential  to  any 
religion.  The  philosophical  side  of  religion  has  been  kept 
apart  from  the  moral  side,  not  only  because  a  clearer  view 
may  be  had  by  looking  at  them  separately,  but  because 
many  religions  of  the  lower  races  have  in  fact  little  to 
do  with  moral  conduct.  A  native  American  or  African 
may  have  a  distinct  belief  in  souls  and  other  spirits  as 
the  causes  of  his  own  life  and  of  the  events  of  the  surround- 
ing world,  and  he  may  worship  these  ghostly  or  divine  beings, 
gaining  their  favour  or  appeasing  their  anger  by  prayers 
and  offerings.  But  though  these  gods  may  require  him  to 
do  his  duty  towards  them,  it  does  not  follow  that  they  should 
concern  themselves  with  his  doing  his  duty  to  his  neighbour. 
Among  such  peoples,  if  a  man  robs  or  murders,  that  is  for 
the  party  wronged  or  his  friends  to  avenge  ;  if  he  is  stingy, 
treacherous,  brutal,  then  punishment  may  fall  on  him  or  he 
may  be  scouted  by  all  good  people  ;  but  he  is  not  necessarily 
looked  upon  as  hateful  to  the  gods,  and  in  fact  such  a  man 
is  often  a  great  medicine-man  or  priest.  While  they  hold 
also  that  the  soul  will  continue  to  exist  after  death,  flitting 
as  a  ghost  or  demon  among  the  living  or  passing  to  the 
gloomy  under-world  or  the  shining  spirit-land,  they  often 
think  its  condition  will  be  rather  a  keeping-up  of  earthly 
character  and  rank,  than  a  reward  or  punishment  for  the 
earthly  life.  If  some  readers  find  it  difficuU  to  under- 
stand such  theology  separate  from  morals,  they  may  be 
reminded    how,    among   more    civilized    nations,    religions 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  369 

may  drop  into  the  same  state   by    losing  the  use    of  the 
moral  laws  they  profess  ;  as  when  a  Hindu  may  lead  the 
wickedest  of  lives,  while  the  priests  for  gifts  make  his  peace 
with  the  gods,  or  as  in  Europe  brigands  are  notoriously  devout 
church  goers.     As  a  rule,  the  faiths  of  the  higher  nations 
have  more  and  better  moral  influence  than  the  faiths  of  the 
ruder  tribes.     Yet  even  among  savages  the  practical  effect  of 
religion  on  men's  lives  begins  to  show  itself.    The  worship  of 
the  dead  naturally  encourages  good  morals  ;  for  the  ancestor 
who,  when  living,  took  care  that  his  family  should  do  right 
by  one  another,  does  not  cease  this  kindly  rule  when  he  be- 
comes a  divine  ghost  powerful  to  favour  or  punish.     This 
manes-worship  does  not  bring  in  new  doctrines  or  reforms  ; 
indeed  it  is  felt  that  nothing  displeases  the  ancestral  deity  like 
changing  the  old  customs  he  was  used  to.     But  for  keeping 
up  old-fashioned  family  goodness,  the  worship  of  ancestors 
has  an  influence  over  the  many  nations  among  whom  it  still 
prevails,  from  the  Zulu,  who  believes  that  he   must  not  ill- 
treat  his  brothers  lest  the  father  should  come  in  a  dream 
and    make    him    ill,    to    the  Chinese,    who    lives    ever    in 
presence  of  the  family  spirits,  and  fears   to   do  wrong  lest 
they  should  leave  him  to  fall  into  distress  and  die.     In  the 
great  old-world  religions,  where  a  powerful  priesthood  are 
the  intellectual  class,  the  educators  and  controllers  of  society, 
we  find  moral  teaching  fully  recognised  among  the  great 
duties    of    religion.      The   gods   take   on   themselves   the 
punishment   of  the  wicked ;    the    Heaven-god  smites    the 
perjurer  with  his  thunderbolt,  and  the   Nation-god  brings 
sickness  and  death  on  the  murderer.     The  doctrine  of  the 
transmigration  of  souls  is  brought  to  bear  as  a  moral  power ; 
as  where  the  Hindu  books  threaten  evil-doers  with  being  re- 
born in  other  bodies  in  punishment  for  their  sins  done  in  this, 
when  the  wicked  shall  be  born  again  blind  or  deformed, 

25 


370  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  scandal-monger  shall  have  foul   breath  and   the  horse- 
stealer shall  go  lame,  the  cruel  man  shall  be  born  as  a  beast 
of  prey,  the  grain-stealer  as  a  rat ;  and  thus,  eating  the  fruits 
of  past   actions,  men  shall  work  out  the  consequences  of 
their  deeds,  souls  sunk  in  darkness  being  degraded  to  brutes, 
while  the  good  rise  in  successive  births  to  become  gods. 
Even  more  widely    spread  is  the  doctrine  that  man's  life 
is  followed  by  judgment  after   death,   when   evil-doers  are 
doomed  to  misery,  and  only  those  who  have  lived.righteously 
on  earth  will  enter  into  bliss.     How  this  doctrine  prevailed 
in  ancient  Egypt,  the  papyrus  strips  of  the  Book  of  the  Dead, 
and  its  pictures  and  hieroglyphic  formulas  on  the  mummy- 
cases,  remain  to  show.     Thus  in  any  museum  we  may  still 
see  the  scene  of  the  weighing  of  the  soul  of  the  deceased, 
and  his  trial  by  Osiris,  the  judge  of  the  dead,  and  the  forty- 
two  assessors,  while  Thoth,  the  writing-god,  stands  by  to  enter 
the  dread  record  on  his  tablets.     In  the  columns  of  hiero- 
glyphics are  set  down  the  crimes  of  which  the  soul  must 
clear  itself,  a  curious  mingling  of  what  we  should  call  cere- 
monial and  moral  sins,  among  them  the  following;  "  I  have 
not  privily  done  evil  against  mankind.      I  have  not  told 
falsehoods  in  the  tribunal  of  Truth.     I  have  not  done  any 
wicked  thing.    I  have  not  made  the  labouring  man  do  more 
than  his  task  daily.     I  have  not  calumniated  the  slave  to 
his  master.     I  have  not  murdered.     I  have  not  done  fraud 
to  men.     I  have  not  changed  the  measures  of  the  country. 
I   have  not  injured  the  images  of   the  gods.     I  have  not 
taken  scraps  of   the  bandages  of   the  dead.     I  have  not 
committed  adultery.     I  have  not  withheld  milk  from  the 
mouths  of  sucklings.     I  have  not  hunted  wild  animals  in 
the  pasturage.     I  have  not  netted  sacred  birds.     I  am  pure, 
I  am  pure,  I  am  pure  !  "     Thus,  among  the  cultured   old- 
world  nations,  already  in  the  earliest  historical  ages  theology 


XIV.]  THE  SPIRIT-WORLD.  371 

had  joined  with  ethics,  and  rebgion  as  a  moral  power  was 
holding  sway  over  society. 

Animism,  or  the  theory  of  souls,  has  thus  been  shown  as 
the  principle  out  of  which  arose  the  various  systems  of  spirits 
and  deities,  in  barbaric  and  ancient  religions,  and  it  has 
been  noticed  also,  how  already  among  rude  races  such  beliefs 
begin  to  act  on  moral  conduct.  We  here  see  under  their 
simplest  aspects  the  two  sides  of  religion,  its  philosophical 
and  its  moral  side,  which  the  reader  should  keep  steadily  in 
view  in  further  study  of  the  faiths  of  the  world.  In  looking 
at  the  history  of  a  religion,  he  will  have  to  judge  how  far 
it  has  served  these  two  great  purposes — on  the  one  hand 
that  of  teaching  man  how  to  think  of  himself,  the  world 
around  him,  the  awful  boundless  power  pervading  all — on 
the  other  hand  that  of  practically  guiding  and  strengthening 
him  in  the  duties  of  life.  One  question  the  student  will  often 
ask  himself — how  it  is  that  faiths  once  mighty  and  earnest  fall 
into  decay  and  others  take  their  place.  Of  course  to  no  small 
extent  such  changes  have  come  by  conquest,  as  where  in 
Persia  the  religion  of  Mohammed  well  nigh  stamped  out 
the  old  Zoroastrian  faith  of  Cyrus  and  Darius.  But  the 
sword  of  the  conqueror  is  only  a  means  by  which  religions 
have  been  set  up  and  put  down  in  the  world  by  main  force, 
and  there  are  causes  lying  deeper  in  men's  minds.  It  needs 
but  a  glance  through  history  at  the  wrecks  of  old  religions 
to  see  how  they  failed  from  within.  The  priests  of  Egypt, 
who  once  represented  the  most  advanced  knowledge  of  their 
time,  came  to  fancy  that  mankind  had  no  more  to  learn, 
and  upheld  their  tradition  against  all  newer  wisdom,  till  the 
world  passed  them  by  and  left  them  grovelling  in  super- 
stition. The  priests  of  Greece  ministered  in  splendid 
temples  and  had  their  fill  of  wealth  and  honours,  but  men 
who  sought  the  secret  of  a  good  life  found  that  this  was  not 


372  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap.  xiv. 

the  business  of  the  sanctuary,  and  turned  away  to  the 
philosophers.  Unless  a  religion  can  hold  its  place  in  the  front 
of  science  and  of  morals,  it  may  only  gradually,  in  the 
course  of  ages,  lose  its  place  in  the  nation,  but  all  the 
power  of  statecraft  and  all  the  wealth  of  the  temples  will 
not  save  it  from  eventually  yielding  to  a  belief  that  takes  in 
higher  knowledge  and  teaches  better  life. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

HISTORY    AND    MYTHOLOGY. 

Tradition,  373— Poetry,  375 — Fact  in  Fiction,  377 — Earliest  Poems  and 
Writings,  381— Ancient  Chronicle  and  History,  383 — Myths,  3S7 — 
Interpretation  of  Myths,  396 — Diffusion  of  Myths,  397. 

History  is  no  longer  looked  to  for  a  record  of  the  earliest 
ages  of  man.  As  the  first  chapter  of  this  volume  shows, 
we  moderns  know  what  was  hidden  from  the  ancients  them- 
selves about  the  still  more  ancient  ancients.  Yet  it  does  not 
at  all  follow  that  ancient  history  has  lost  its  value.  On  the 
contrary,  there  are  better  means  than  ever  of  confirming  what 
is  really  sound  in  it  by  such  evidence  as  that  of  antiquities 
and  language,  while  masses  of  very  early  writings  are  now 
newly  opened  to  the  historian.  It  was  never  more  necessary 
to  have  clear  ideas  of  what  tradition,  poetry,  and  written 
records  can  teach  as  to  the  times  when  history  begins. 

The  early  history  of  nations  consists  more  or  less  of 
traditions  handed  down  by  memory  from  ages  before  writing. 
Our  own  experience  does  not  tell  us  much  as  to  what  such 
oral  tradition  may  be  worth,  for  it  has  so  fallen  out  of  use 
in  the  civilised  world,  that  now  one  knows  little  of  what 
happened  beyond  one's  great-grandfather's  time,  unless 
it  has  been  written  down.     But  writing  has  not  yet  quite 


374  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

overspread  the  globe,  and  there  are  still  peoples  left  whose 
whole  history  is  the  tradition  of  their  ancestors.  Thus  the 
South  Sea  Islanders,  who  till  quite  lately  had  no  writing,  were 
intelligent  barbarians,  much  given  to  handing  down  recol- 
lections of  bygone  days,  and  in  one  or  two  cases  which  it 
has  been  possible  to  test  among  them,  it  seems  as  though 
memory  may  really  keep  a  histoi  ical  record  long  and  correctly. 
It  is  related  by  Mr.  VVhitmee  the  missionary  that  in  the 
island  of  Rotuma  there  was  a  very  old  tree,  under  which 
according  to  tradition,  the  stone  seat  of  a  famous  chief  had 
been  buried  ;  this  tree  was  lately  blown  down,  and,  sure 
enough,  there  was  a  stone  seat  under  its  roots,  which  must 
have  been  out  of  sight  for  centuries.  In  the  EUice  group 
the  natives  declared  that  their  ancestors  came  from  a  valley 
in  the  distant  island  of  Samoa  generations  before,  and  they 
preserved  an  old  worm-eaten  staff,  pieced  to  hold  it  together, 
which  in  their  assemblies  the  orator  held  in  his  hand  as 
the  sign  of  having  the  right  to  speak  ;  this  staff  was  lately 
taken  to  Samoa,  and  proved  to  be  made  of  wood  that  grew 
there,  while  the  people  of  the  valley  in  question  had  a 
tradition  of  a  great  party  going  out  to  sea  exploring,  who 
never  came  back.  Among  these  Polynesian  traditions  the 
best  known  are  those  handed  down  by  the  Maoris  as  to  the 
peopling  of  New  Zealand  by  their  ancestors.  They  tell 
how,  after  a  civil  war,  their  forefathers  migrated  in  canoes 
from  Hawaiki  in  the  far  north-cast ;  they  give  the  names  of 
the  builders  and  crews  of  these  vessels  and  show  the  places 
where  they  landed  ;  they  repeat,  generation  by  generation, 
the  names  of  the  chiefs  descended  from  those  who  came 
in  the  canoes,  by  which  they  reckon  about  eighteen  genera- 
tions, or  400  to  500  years,  since  their  taking  possession 
of  the  islands.  Notwithstanding  that,  as  might  be  expected, 
the  traditions  of  various  districts  disagree  a  good  deal,  they 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  375 

are  admitted  as  the  title-deeds  by  which  the  natives  hold 
land  in  the  right  of  their  ancestors  who  landed  in  the  canoes 
Shark  {Aratca)  and  God's-Eye  {Mata-atua\  and  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that  such  genealogies,  constantly  repeated  among 
people  whose  lands  depended  on  them,  are  founded 
on  fact.  Yet  these  INIaori  traditions  are  about  half  made 
up  of  the  wildest  wonder-tales  ;  when  the  builder  of  one 
of  the  canoes  cuts  down  a  great  tree  to  make  the  hull,  on 
coming  back  to  the  forest  next  morning  he  finds  that  the 
tree  has  got  up  again  in  the  night ;  and  when  the  canoe  is 
finished  and  puts  to  sea,  a  certain  magician  is  left  behind, 
but  on  getting  to  New  Zealand  there  he  is  before  them  on 
the  shore,  having  come  across  the  ocean  on  the  back  of  a 
sea-monster,  like  Arion  on  his  dolphin.  These  traditions  of 
a  modern  barbarous  people  may  give  us  not  an  unfair  idea 
of  the  mixture  of  real  memory  and  mythic  fancy  in  the 
early  history  of  Egypt  or  Greece,  where  it  has  come  down 
by  tradition  from  the  distant  past  when  there  was  as  yet 
no  scribe  to  engrave  on  a  stone  tablet  even  the  names 
of  kings. 

Traditions  are  yet  more  lasting  when  handed  down  in 
fixed  words,  which  is  especially  when  the  poets  have  set 
them  in  verse.  Even  now  in  England  some  notable  event 
may  be  made  into  a  ballad  and  sung  through  the  length  and 
breadth  of  the  land.  In  days  before  printing,  the  import- 
ance of  the  poet  as  historian  was  far  greater,  and  many 
an  old  European  chant  has  touches  of  true  chronicle.  The 
old  songs  of  Brittany  are  often  very  true  to  history,  as 
where  in  one  there  is  mention  of  Bertrand  du  Guesclin's 
hair  being  like  a  lion's  mane,  and  in  another,  Jeanne  de 
Montfort  (Jeanne-la-Flamme)  going  forth  from  Hennebont 
with  sword  and  burning  brand  to  fire  the  French  camp,  is 
described  as  putting  on  her  suit   of  armour,  which  history 


376  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

elsewhere  records  that  she  really  wore.  But  though  the 
poet  or  minstrel  preserves  many  picturesque  incidents  like 
these,  he  has  not  the  historian's  conscience  about  facts. 
Eager  to  rouse  and  delight  his  audience,  to  flatter  the 
national  pride  of  his  people  and  the  family  pride  of  the  chief- 
tain in  whose  halls  he  sang,  the  singer  brought  in  real  names 
and  events,  but  he  shifted  them  as  would  best  suit  his 
dramatic  scenery,  or  he  even  made  his  own  history  outright. 
The  great  German  epic,  the  Nibelungen  Lied,  begins  in 
Burgundy,  where  the  three  kings  hold  court  at  Worms  on 
the  Rhine,  their  sister  is  the  lovely  Kriemhilt,  whose  hus- 
band Sifrit  is  treacherously  slain  at  the  well  by  Hagen's 
spear  ;  afterwards  she  marries  i\ttila  the  Hun-king,  and 
the  tale  of  blood,  ending  with  her  vengeance  and  death, 
leaves  Attila  and  Theodoric  of  Verona  (Etzel  and  Dietrich 
von  Bern)  weeping  together  over  the  slaughter  of  their 
men.  Here  are  places  and  personages  historical  enough  to 
make  a  poem  history,  if  history  could  be  made  by  such 
means  ;  but  the  reader  of  Gibbon  knows  that  Attila  really 
died  two  years  before  Theodoric  was  born.  In  fact  the 
poem  is  a  late  version  of  a  story  preserved  in  an  earlier 
shape  in  Scandinavia  as  the  saga  of  the  Volsungs ;  the 
court  at  Worms,  and  the  tournament,  and  the  rest  of  the 
historic  names  and  local  circumstances,  are  worked  in  to 
give  poetic  substance  and  colour.  If  poets  ventured  thus 
to  falsify  history  in  the  middle  ages,  when  the  chronicles 
were  there  to  convict  them,  how  are  we  to  tell  fact  from 
fiction  in  the  poems  of  ages  where  the  check  of  history  is 
wanting?  The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  may  contain  many 
memories  of  real  men  and  their  deeds,  an  Agamemnon  may 
have  reigned  in  ]\Iykenai,  there  may  have  been  a  real  siege 
of  Troy,  perhaps  round  the  very  mound  where  Schliemann 
has  dug  out  the  golden  cups  and  necklace.   But  it  is  too  hard 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  377 

a  task  to  sift  out  historic  truth  in  Homer,  where  natural 
events  are  as  hopelessly  mixed  up  with  miracles  as  in  the 
Maori  legends.  It  is  too  hard  to  judge  how  far  chronicles 
of  old  nations  are  impartially  preserved  by  a  bard  whose 
rule  it  is  (as  Mr.  Gladstone  points  out  in  his  Primer  of 
HoDier)  that  no  considerable  Greek  chieftain  is  ever  slain 
in  fair  fight  by  a  Trojan.  Were  nothing  to  be  had  out  of 
ancient  poetry  except  distorted  memories  of  historical  events, 
the  anthropologist  might  be  wise  to  set  it  aside  altogether. 
Yet,  looked  at  from  another  point  of  view,  it  is  one  of  his 
most  perfect  and  exact  sources  of  knowledge. 

Although  what  the  poet  relates  may  be  fiction,  what  he 
mentions  is  apt  to  be  history.  In  the  names  of  nations  and 
countries  and  cities,  he  is  unconsciously  pourtraying  for  us 
the  world  and  its  inhabitants  as  they  were  in  his  time.  The 
catalogue  of  ships  and  men  in  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad 
is  a  chart  and  census  of  the  Mediterranean.  Homer  knows  of 
the  ^^gyptians,  their  irrigated  fields  and  their  skill  in  medi- 
cine, and  of  the  ship-famed  Phoenicians  and  their  purple  stuffs. 
The  name  of  Kadmos  belongs  to  the  Phoenician  tongue,  and 
signifies  the  "Eastern,"  while  the  "  seven -gated  "  Thebes 
built  by  his  people  shows  that  they  had  that  reverence  for 
the  mystic  number  seven,  which  has  its  origin  in  the  worship 
of  the  seven  planets  in  Babylon.  The  poet  can  hardly  have 
thought,  when  he  told  his  wonder-tales  with  the  circum- 
stances of  the  actual  world  around  him,  how  future  ages 
would  prize  for  itself  that  record  of  real  life.  Odysseus 
clinging  under  the  belly  of  the  great  ram,  or  sailing  to  the 
land  of  Hades  to  the  weak  shades  of  the  dead,  is  mere 
myth.  Yet  the  description  of  Polyphemos  is  one  of  the 
few  ancient  pictures  of  the  manners  of  low  barbarians,  and 
the  visit  to  Hades  is  a  chapter  of  old  Greek  religion, 
recording  what  men  thought  of  the  dull  ghost-life  beyond 


378  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

the  tomb.  So  it  is  with  the  descriptions  of  life  and  manners. 
Nausikaa,  the  king's  daughter,  drives  the  wain  with  the  pair 
of  mules  down  to  the  river's  mouth  to  carry  the  clothes  to 
be  washed.  Odysseus  walks  through  the  streets  of  the  sea- 
faring Phaiakians,  wondering  at  the  haven  and  the  mighty 
walls  and  bastions,  till  he  crosses  the  bronze  threshold  of  the 
palace  of  Alkinoos,  and  entering,  clasps  the  knees  of  Queen 
Arete  ;  then  he  crouches  on  the  hearthstone  in  the  ashes,  till 
the  king,  mindful  of  Zeus  the  Thunderer  standing  near  to  care 
for  the  suppliant,  takes  the  guest  by  the  hand,  and  makes 
him  sit  by  him  on  his  own  son's  glittering  seat.  Thus  follow- 
ing the  romantic  fortunes  of  the  many- wiled  Odysseus,  we 
see  as  in  the  scenes  of  a  dissolving-view  how  the  heroes  of  old 
days  went  spear  in  hand  with  their  swift  dogs  at  their  heel, 
how  at  the  house-door  they  threw  aside  their  garments  to 
go  into  the  bath-chamber,  and  came  forth  anointed  with  oil 
to  the  feast  where  with  no  such  refinements  as  plates  or 
knives  they  ate  their  fill  of  roast  meat  and  cakes  of  bread  j 
how  they  diverted  themselves  with  throwing  quoits  on  the 
smooth  turf,  or  lounged  on  outspread  hides  in  the  sunshine 
playing  merells ;  how  in  solemn  rites  they  poured  the 
libations  of  dark  wine  and  burned  the  meat  in  sacrifice, 
with  prayers  for  what  their  hearts  desired,  yet  knowing  all 
the  while  that  the  gods  would,  as  they  Hsted,  this  grant  and 
that  deny.  All  this  is  not  only  history,  but  history  of  the 
finest  kind.  Looked  at  by  the  student  of  culture,  even  the 
wild  mixture  of  the  natural  and  supernatural,  so  bewildering 
to  the  modern  mind,  is  the  record  of  an  early  stage  of 
religious  thought.  The  gods  meet  in  council  in  the  halls 
of  cloud -gathering  Zeus,  to  settle  what  shall  be  done  with 
their  contending  armies  of  worshippers  on  the  plains  below. 
In  the  very  fray  of  mortal  warriors  divine  beings  take  part ; 
Poseidon  plucks  out  the  bronze  tipped  spear  from  the  shield 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  379 

of  Aineias,  lifts  up  the  Trojan  hero  and  bears  him  away  un- 
harmed over  the  heads  of  the  warriors ;  even  the  goddesses 
set  on  one  another  Hke  mortal  shrews,  when  Here  tears 
away  the  bow  and  quiver  of  Artemis,  and  with  scornful 
laughter  boxes  her  ears  with  them  till  the  virgin  huntress 
goes  off  in  tears,  leaving  her  bow  behind.  It  would  be 
wrong  to  think  that  all  this  seemed  mere  make-believe  and 
poetic  ornament  to  the  men  who  first  listened  to  the  wondrous 
rhapsodies.  They  were  in  the  changing  state  of  religion 
described  in  the  last  chapter  (see  p.  362)  when  the  spiritual 
beings,  which  to  their  ruder  forefathers  had  served  as  personal 
causes  of  nature  and  events,  were  passing  away  from  their 
first  clearness,  yet  were  still  regarded  as  divinities  presiding 
over  nature  and  interfering  with  men's  lives.  Contrasting 
such  a  state  of  thought  with  that  of  the  present  day  will 
help  us  to  realize  one  of  the  greatest  events  in  all  history, 
the  change  of  men's  minds  from  the  mythological  temper 
to  the  historical  temper.  This  change  did  not  happen  all 
at  once,  but  has  fur  many  ages  been  gradually  coming 
about.  There  is  hardly  a  more  instructive  chapter  in  Grote's 
History  of  Greece,  than  that  in  which  he  describes  the  philo- 
sophic age,  when  the  Greeks  were  beginning  to  notice  with 
perplexity  and  pain  that  the  Homeric  poems,  become  to 
them  a  sacred  book,  agreed  but  ill  with  their  own  experience 
of  life,  so  that  they  asked  themselves,  can  the  world  have 
really  so  changed  since  the  days  when  men  sat  at  table 
with  the  gods  ? 

Much  of  what  is  called  ancient  history  has  to  be  looked 
at  in  this  way.  Historical  criticism,  that  is,  judgment,  is 
practised  not  for  the  purpose  of  disbelieving  but  of  believ- 
ing. Its  object  is  not  to  find  fault  with  the  author,  but  to 
ascertain  how  much  of  what  he  says  may  be  reasonably  taken 
as  true.    Thus  a  modern  reader  may  have  a  sounder  opinion 


3So  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

about  early  Roman  history  than  the  Romans  themselves  had 
in  the  time  of  Livy  and  Cicero.  We  see  more  plainly  than 
they,  that  the  name  of  Rome  is  less  likely  to  have  been 
given  from  a  man  called  Romulus,  than  that  the  name  of 
Romulus  was  invented  to  account  for  the  city  being  called 
Rome.  To  modern  minds,  the  whole  famous  story  of  the 
wolf-fostermother  of  Romulus  and  Remus  collapses  when  it 
is  known  to  be  only  a  version  of  the  same  old  wonder-tale 
told  by  Herodotus  as  the  story  of  the  birth  of  Cyrus.  Yet 
here  again  may  be  seen  the  indirect  value  of  history  even 
where  its  events  are  most  questionable.  Though  there  may 
never  have  been  any  such  person  as  Romulus,  the  legend 
of  the  tracing  of  the  city  walls  by  his  bronze  plough-share 
is  a  true  record  of  the  ceremony  with  which  cities  were 
anciently  founded.  Even  later  history,  where  the  historian 
had  written  records  to  go  upon,  must  often  be  sifted  in 
this  way.  Suppose  a  class  reading  the  35th  book  of  Livy. 
Such  matters  as  Hannibal's  oath,  and  the  preparations  for 
war  with  Antiochus,  are  taken  without  question  as  good 
history.  But  when  it  comes  to  the  story  that  about  this 
time  an  ox  belonging  to  one  of  the  consuls  uttered  the 
awful  words  "  Roma,  cave  tibi !  "  there  is  a  laugh.  Here 
it  is  not  enough  for  the  form-master  simply  to  pass  the 
story  by  as  Livy's  nonsense.  He  has  to  admit  that  the 
historian  probably  took  it  from  the  official  record  of  pro- 
digies, so  that  at  any  rate  it  is  good  historical  evidence 
that-  in  ancient  Rome  men  not  only  believed  that  an  ox 
might  speak,  but  that  its  so  doing  would  be  a  divine  portent, 
and  notions  of  this  kind  had  so  become  part  of  the  national 
religion  and  government,  that  the  augurs  took  care  a  regular 
supply  of  such  omens  should  be  forthcoming  to  guide  the 
rulers  of  the  state,  or  at  least  to  enable  them  to  impose  upon 
the  multitude.     Thus  the  passages  of  history  which  seem  at 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  381 

first  sight  most  silly  and  false,  may  be  solid   facts   in  the 
history  of  civilisation. 

It  is  plain  that  the  compositions  which  serve  as  records 
of  old-world  life  need  not  have  been  intended  as  history. 
If  only  the  genuine  words  and  thoughts  of  the  ancients 
about  anything  have  been  handed  down,  it  is  for  the 
moderns  to  extract  history  from  them.  Thus  the  Sanskrit 
hymns  collected  in  the  Veda  serve  as  a  record  of  the  daily 
life  of  the  early  Aryans  who  chanted  them.  For  when  a 
hymn  to  the  wmd  gods  brings  them  in  as  driving  in  chariots 
with  strong  felloes  and  well-fashioned  reins  and  cracking 
whips,  then  it  is  plain  to  the  modern  reader  that  the  Aryan 
people  among  whom  the  hymn  was  made  drove  themselves 
in  such  chariots.  Where  the  bright  gods  have  gold  chains  on 
their  breasts  for  beauty,  carry  spears  on  their  shoulders  and 
daggers  at  their  sides,  this  mythical  fancy  gives  a  real 
picture  of  the  accoutrement  of  the  Aryan  warrior.  Thus, 
piece  by  piece,  this  prsehistoric  hymn-book  shows  the  old 
patriarchal  Aryaa  life,  with  the  herds  of  cattle  roaming  over 
wide  pastures  or  shut  in  the  winter  cow-stall,  the  ploughing 
of  the  fields  and  the  reaping  of  the  corn,  the  family  ties  and 
legal  rights,  the  worship  of  the  great  nature-gods  of  sky  and 
earth,  sun  and  dawn,  fire  and  water  and  winds,  the  intense 
belief  in  the  shining  regions  of  the  immortal  dead,  the 
honour  to  the  almsgiver  and  praise  to  the  just  man.  In 
the  sacred  books  of  the  old  Persians,  collected  in  the 
Avesta,  have  come  down  the  long-remembered  traditions  of 
another  branch  of  the  Aryan  race,  who,  dividing  off  from 
their  Brahman  kinsfolk,  followed  the  faith  of  Zarathustra. 
The  deep  schism  between  the  two  religions  is  seen  in  the 
Zarathustrians  having  degraded  the  bright  gods  (deva)  of 
the  Brahmans  into  evil  demons  {dacva).  Their  horror  of 
defiling  the  sacred  fire  by  burning  corpses  as  the  Brahmans 


382  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

do  had  already  led  them  to  expose  the  dead  to  be  devoured 
by  wild  beasts  and  carrion  birds,  as  the  Parsis  still  do  in 
their  "towers  of  silence."  In  the  beginning  of  the  Avesta, 
there  is  mentioned  as  first  and  best  of  the  good  regions 
created  by  the  good  deity,  the  country  called  Airyana  vaej'o, 
the  "  Aryan  seed,"  which  afterwards  the  evil  deity  cursed 
with  ten  months'  winter ;  this  description  of  the  climate 
looks  as  though  the  old  Persians  believed  their  early  Aryan 
home  was  on  the  bleak  slopes  of  Central  Asia  toward  the 
sources  of  the  Oxus  and  Yaxartes.  Here  and  there 
among  the  sacred'verses  comes  a  touch  of  the  life  of  these 
proud  fierce  herdsmen  and  tillers  of  the  soil,  little  like  the 
corrupt  Persian  and  the  thrifty  Parsi  of  modern  times. 
Their  enthusiasm  for  the  rough  work  of  making  the  earth  fit 
for  man's  abode  is  quaintly  shown  where  they  sing  of 
the  delight  the  earth  feels  when  the  husbandman  drains 
the  wet  soil  and  waters  the  dry,  how  she  brings  wealth  to 
him  who  tills  her  with  the  right  arm  and  the  left,  with  the 
left  arm  and  the  right : 

"  When  tlie  corn  grows,  then  the  demons  hiss ; 
When  the  shoots  sprout,  then  the  demons  cough  ; 
When  the  stalks  rise,  then  the  demons  weep  ; 
When  the  th  ck  ears  come,  then  tlie  demons  fly." 

So  necessary  were  the  fierce  dogs  which  kept  the  wolf 
from  the  fold  and  the  thief  from  the  village,  that  there  are 
solemn  ordinances  about  thern,  how  the  dog  who  does  not 
bark  and  is  not  right  in  his  mind  is  to  be  muzzled  and  tied 
up,  and  what  punishment  is  to  be  inflicted  on  the  man  who 
gives  a  dog  bad  food ;  it  is  as  sinful  (they  say)  as  if  he  had 
done  it  to  a  well-to-do  householder.  One  forms  a  lifelike 
picture  of  the  sturdy  farmers  who  made  these  laws  to 
be  repeated  to  their  children's  children  and  carried  on  to 
future  as:es. 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  383 

While  these  rough  Aryans  were  handing  on  memories 
of  the  past  by  word  of  mouth  in  their  sacred  verses,  more 
cultured  nations  had  long  since  begun  to  write  down 
memorials  of  their  own  times.  The  best  way  to  bring  to  our 
minds  what  this  earliest  contemporary  history  was  like,  is  to 
look  at  the  translations  of  Egyptian  and  Assyrian  documents 
in  Records  of  the  Past,  published  under  the  directions  of  the 
Society  of  Biblical  Archceology.  Here  is  to  be  found,  for  in- 
stance, Dr.  Birch's  translation  of  the  inscription  recording 
the  expeditions  of  Una,  crown-bearer  to  king  Teta,  before 
2,000  B.C.  (see  page  3),  and  of  the  account  on  the  sanctuary 
walls  of  Karnak,  of  the  battle  of  Megiddo,  where  Thothmes 
III.,  about  1,500  B.C.,  overcame  the  armies  of  Syria  and 
Mesopotamia  and  opened  the  way  into  the  interior  of  Asia. 
It  is  related  how  the  king,  marching  from  Gaza,  reached 
the  south  of  Megiddo  on  the  shore  of  the  waters  of  Kaner, 
where  he  pitched  his  tent  and  made  a  speech  before  his 
whole  army  :  "  Hasten  ye,  put  on  your  helmets,  for  I  shall 
rush  to  fight  with  the  vile  enemy  in  the  morning  !"  The 
watchword  was  passed,  "  Firm,  firm,  watch,  watch,  watch 
actively  at  the  king's  pavilion  !  "  It  was  on  the  morning  of 
the  festival  of  the  new  moon  that  the  king  went  forth  in  his 
golden  decorated  chariot  in  the  midst  of  his  army,  the  god 
Amun  being  the  protection  in  his  active  limbs,  and  he  pre- 
vailed over  his  enemies  ;  they  fell  prostrate  before  him,  left 
their  horses  and  chariots,  and  fled  to  the  fort,  where  the 
garrison  shut  up  inside  pulled  off  their  clothes  to  haul  them 
up  over  the  walls.  The  Egyptians  slaughtered  their  enemies 
till  they  lay  in  rows  like  fish,  and  conquering  entered  the 
fort  of  Megiddo,  where  the  chiefs  of  the  land  came  bearing 
tribute,  silver  and  gold,  lapis  lazuli  and  alabaster,  vessels  of 
wine  and  flocks.  The  lists  of  spoil,  made  with  curious 
minuteness,  include  living  captives  240,  hands  (cut  off  the 


384  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

dead)  8^,  mares  2,041,  fillies  191,  an  ark  of  gold  of  the 
enemy,  892  chariots  of  the  vile  army,  and  so  on.  A  later 
part  of  the  inscription  commemorates  the  liberal  endow- 
ments bestowed  by  the  victorious  king  on  the  god  Amen 
Ra,  the  fields  and  gardens  to  supply  his  temple,  the  pairs 
of  geese  to  fill  his  lakes,  to  supply  him  with  the  two  trussed 
geese  daily  at  sunset,  a  charge  to  remain  for  ever,  and  so 
on  with  the  loaves  of  bread  and  pots  of  beer  for  daily 
rations.  As  the  king  says  in  his  inscription,  he  does 
not  boast  of  what  he  has  done,  saying  that  he  has  done 
more  when  he  has  not,  and  so  causing  men  to  contradict 
him.  Here  we  see  the  check  of  public  opinion  beginning 
to  act  in  history.  It  does  not  really  compel  exact  truth,  it 
allows  national  victories  to  be  exaggerated  and  defeats  kept 
out  of  sight,  but  even  the  vainglorious  scribes  of  Egypt 
would  hardly  venture  to  record  events  without  a  foundation 
of  fact.  Turning  now  to  the  inscriptions  of  the  Babylonian- 
Assyrian  district,  we  may  take  as  an  example  a  temple-brick 
of  the  famous  city  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  now  called  Mugheir, 
which  bears  these  words  in  cuneiform  writing  : 

"  To  (the  god)  Ur,  eldest  son  of  Bel  his  king, 
Urukh,  the  powerful  man,  the  fierce  wariior, 
King  of  (the  city)  Ur,  king  of  Snmir  and  Akkad, 
Bit-timgal  the  house  of  his  delight  built." 

Sumir  and  Akkad,  here  mentioned,  were  the  seats  of  the 
old  Chaldaean  civilisation.  As  early  as  the  i6th  century  B.C., 
Hammurabi  overcame  these  nations,  a  great  event  in  the 
change  that  absorbed  their  ancient  culture  and  religion  into 
the  conquering  Assyrian  empire.  In  an  inscription  of  tliis 
king  of  Babylon,  he  says,  "the  favour  of  Bel  gave  into  my 
government  the  people  of  Sinnir  and  Akkad,  for  them  I 
dug  out  afresh  the  canal  called  by  my  name,  the  joy  of 
men,  a  stream    of  abundant  waters  for  the  people,  all  its 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  385 

banks  I  restored  to  newness,  new  supporting  walls  I 
heaped  up,  perennial  waters  I  provided  for  the  people  of 
Sumir  and  Akkad." 

By  the  aid  of  such  contemporary  writings,  historians  are 
now  able  to  check  the  recorded  lists  of  ancient  kings,  and  to 
piece  together  something  like  a  continuous  line  of  dynasties 
in  Egypt  and  Babylonia  since  the  foundation  of  the  great 
cities  Memphis  and  Ur.  We  may  notice  where  the  records 
and  traditions  of  the  Israelites,  written  down  in  later  ages 
in  the  historical  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  come  in 
contact  with  ancient  history  from  the  monuments.  Israelite 
tradition  records  (Gen.  xi.,  xii.)  that  their  ancestors  had 
been  in  the  Chaldfcan  district  of  Ur,  and  in  Egypt,  which 
is  evidence  of  their  intercourse  with  the  two  great  nations 
of  the  ancient  world.  The  mention  in  Exodus  (i.  11)  of 
the  Israelites  being  set  to  build  for  Pharaoh  a  city  called 
Rameses,  points  to  their  oppression  in  Egypt  having  been 
under  the  Great  Rameses  II.  of  the  XIX.  dynasty,  apparently 
about  1400  B.C.,  which  makes  a  point  of  contact  between 
Egyptian  and  Hebrew  chronology.  In  the  books  of  Kings 
there  come  into  view  later  persons  and  events,  well  known 
in  the  contemporary  records  of  other  countries,  as  in  the 
mention  of  Shishak,  king  of  Egypt,  who  fought  against 
Rehoboam  and  plundered  the  temple  (i  K,  xiv.  25).  It 
seems  likely,  when  Herodotus  (ii.  141)  describes  the  army 
of  Sennacherib,  king  of  Assyria,  being  put  to  flight  from  the 
mice  gnawing  the  soldiers'  bows,  that  this  is  a  version  of 
the  great  disaster  of  Sennacherib,  of  which  the  Bible  gives  a 
different  account  (2  K.  xix.). 

AVith  Herodotus  the  student  comes  in  view  of  the  Old 
World  as  it  was  known  to  a  Greek  traveller  and  geo- 
grapher of  the  5th  century  b.c.  The  Father  of  History,  as 
he  has  been  called,  wrote  not  as  a  chronicler  of  his  own 
26 


386  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

nation,  but  \Yith  the  larger  view  of  an  anthropologist  to 
whom  all  knowledge  of  mankind  was  interesting.  The 
way  in  which  modern  discoveries  have  come  in  to  confirm 
his  statements,  justifies  us  in  relying  on  ancient  historians 
when,  like  him,  they  are  careful  to  distinguish  mere  legend 
or  hearsay  from  what  they  have  themselves  enquired  into. 
Thus  Herodotus  tells  the  strange  story  of  the  impostor  who 
passed  himself  off  as  Smerdis,  and  sat  on  the  throne  of 
Persia  till  he  was  detected  by  his  cropped  ears,  and  Darius 
slew  him.  When,  a  few  years  ago,  the  cuneiform 
characters  of  the  inscription  sculptured  in  a  high  wall  of 
rock  near  Behistan  in  Persia  were  deciphered,  it  proved  to 
be  the  very  record  set  up  by  Darius  the  king  in  the  three 
languages  of  the  land,  and  it  matches  the  account  given 
by  Herodotus  closely  enough  to  show  what  a  real  grasp  he 
had  of  the  course  of  events  in  Persia  a  century  before  his 
time.  Yet  more  remarkable  is  the  test  which  can  be 
put  to  what  Herodotus  says  he  learnt  from  the  priests 
in  Egypt  about  their  kings  who  reigned  2000  years  before. 
From  their  dictation  he  wrote  down  the  names  of  the 
pyramid-kings  Cheops,  Chephren,  Mykerinos.  In  later 
ages  critics  had  sometimes  come  to  doubt  whether  these 
kings  belonged  to  fact  or  fable,  but  when  the  lost  mean- 
ing of  the  Egyptian  hieroglyphics  was  anew  interpreted 
by  modern  scholars,  there  stood  the  names  recognisable 
as  the  Greek  historian  heard  them.  The  best  ancient 
history  is  apt  to  receive  such  confirmation  from  long-lost 
monuments.  Thucydides  relates  (vi.  54)  that  Peisistratos 
(the  younger)  dedicated  two  altars,  from  one  of  which  the 
Athenians  erased  the  inscription,  but  the  other  (the  his- 
torian says)  may  still  be  read,  though  in  faint  letters  :  "this 
monument  of  his  archonship  Peisistratos  son  of  Hippias  set 
up  in  the  enclosure  of  Pythian  Apollo."     Professor  Newton 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  387 

reports  that  this  very  stone  with  its  inscription  is  declared 
to  have  been  found  in  1878  in  a  courtyard  near  the  lUssos. 
How  lively  a  sense  of  reality  such  monuments  give  to 
history  may  be  understood  by  the  student  who,  fresh 
from  his  books,  goes  to  the  British  IMuseum  and  sees 
among  the  ancient  coins  the  grand  head  of  Alexander  the 
Great  with  the  ram's  horns,  commemorating  that  curious 
episode  of  his  life  whe  n  he  was  declared  to  be  son  of  Zeus 
Ammon  ;  or  who  notices  with  surprise  the  gold  coins 
that  prove  Cymbeline,  now  best  known  in  Shakspere,  to 
have  been  a  real  British  king  who  coined  money  with 
his  name. 

Having  thus  looked  at  the  sources  of  early  history 
as  belonging  to  the  study  of  mankind,  we  need  not  go 
over  the  well-trodden  ground  of  later  history.  It  remains 
to  notice  myth,  the  stumbling-block  which  historians 
have  so  often  fallen  over.  Myth  is  not  to  be  looked 
on  as  mere  error  and  folly,  but  as  an  interesting  product  of 
the  human  mind.  It  is  sham  history,  the  fictitious  narrative 
of  events  that  never  happened.  Historians,  especially 
in  writing  of  early  ages,  have  copied  down  tlie  traditions 
of  real  events  so  mixed  up  with  myths,  that  it  is  one  of  the 
hardest  tasks  of  the  student  to  judge  what  to  believe  and 
what  to  reject.  He  is  fortunate  when  he  can  apply  the 
test  of  possibility,  and  declare  an  event  did  not  happen 
because  he  knows  enough  of  the  course  of  nature  to  be  sure 
it  could  not.  For  instance,  cultured  nations  have  learnt 
from  science  that  what  appears  to  be  a  blue  dome  or 
firmament  above  our  heads,  the  sky  or  heaven,  is  not 
really  the  solid  vault  the  ancients  thought  it  was,  but 
only  thin  air  and  watery  vapour.  The  consequence  of 
knowing  this  is  that  people  have  had  to  strike  out  of  their 
history  the  old  myths   of  gods  dwelling  in   palaces   and 


388  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

holding  courts  in  the  skies,  of  men  dimbing  or  flying  up 
from  earth  into  heaven,  of  giants  heaping  mountain  Ossa 
on  Pelion,  to  scale  the  cloudy  heights  and  wage  battle 
with  the  gods  above.  Besides  this  way  of  detecting  myth 
by  its  relating  what  could  not  have  taken  place,  there  are 
other  means  of  judging  it.  It  is  often  possible  to  satisfy 
oneself  that  some  story  is  not  really  history,  by  knowing 
the  causes  which  led  to  its  being  invented. 

We  know  how  strong  our  own  desire  is  to  account  for 
everything.  This  desire  is  as  strong  among  barbarians, 
and  accordingly  they  devise  such  explanations  as  satisfy  their 
minds.  But  they  are  apt  to  go  a  stage  further,  and  their 
explanations  turn  into  the  form  of  stories  with  names  of 
places  and  persons,  thus  becoming  full-made  myths. 
Educated  men  do  not  now  consider  it  honest  to  make 
fictitious  history  in  this  way,  but  people  of  untrained  mind, 
in  what  is  called  the  myth-making  stage,  which  has  lasted 
on  from  the  savage  period  and  has  not  quite  disappeared 
among  ourselves,  have  no  such  scruples  about  converting 
their  guesses  at  what  may. have  happened,  into  the  most 
life-like  stories  of  what  they  say  did  happen.  Thus,  when 
comparative  anatomy  was  hardly  known,  the  finding  of  huge 
fossil  bones  in  the  ground  led  people  to  think  they  were  the 
remains  of  huge  beasts,  and  enormous  men,  or  giants,  who 
formerly  lived  on  the  earth.  Modern  science  decides  that 
they  were  right  as  to  the  beasts,  which  were  ancient  species 
of  elephant,  rhinoceros,  &c.,  but  wrong  as  to  the  giants, 
none  of  the  great  bones  really  belonging  to  any  creature 
like  man.  But  while  the  belief  lasted  that  they  were  bones 
of  giants,  men's  imagination  worked  in  making  stories  about 
these  giants  and  their  terrific  doings,  stories  which  are  told 
still  in  all  quarters  of  the  globe  as  though  they  were 
traditions  of  real  events.     Thus  the  Sioux  of  the  western 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  389 

prairies  of  North  America  say  their  land  was  once  inhabited 
by  great  animals,  bits  of  whose  bones  they  still  keep  for 
magic,  and  also  they  tell  of  the  giant  Ha-o-kah,  who  could 
stride  over  the  largest  rivers  and  the  tallest  pines,  and  to 
whom  they  sing  and  dance  at  their  .festivals.  It  appears 
that  fossil  bones,  very  likely  of  the  mastodon,  had  to  do 
with  this  native  belief  in  old  monstrous  beasts,  nor  need 
we  be  surprised  at  the  giants  coming  into  the  story,  con- 
sidering that  so  lately  as  the  last  century  Dr.  Cotton  Mather, 
the  Puritan  divine,  sent  to  our  Royal  Society  an  account  of 
the  discovery  of  such  bones  in  New  England,  which  he 
argued  were  remains  of  antediluvian  giants. 

Another  thing  which  in  all  parts  of  the  world  has  set  the 
imagination  of  myth-makers  to  work,  is  the  fact  that  people 
live  in  tribes  or  nations,  each  known  by  a  particular  name, 
such  as  Ojibwa,  Afghan,  Frank.  The  easiest  and  favourite 
way  of  accounting  for  this  is  to  suppose  each  tribe  or  nation 
to  have  had  an  ancestor  or  chief  of  the  like  name,  so  that  his 
descendants  or  followers  inherited  their  tribe-name  from  him. 
It  really  happens  so  sometimes,  but  in  most  cases  a  pre- 
tended tradition  of  such  an  eponymic  or  name-ancestor 
arises  from  the  makers  of  genealogies  first  inventing  him  out 
of  the  name  of  the  tribe,  and  then  treating  him  as  a 
historical  personage.  They  may  now  and  then  be  caught 
in  the  act  of  doing  this.  Thus  among  the  native  race  of 
Brazil  and  Paraguay,  some  tribes  are  called  Tupi  and 
others  Guaraui,  so  to  account  for  this  division,  a  tradition 
is  related  that  two  brothers  named  Tupi  and  Guarani  came 
over  the  sea  to  Brazil,  and  with  their  children  peopled  the, 
country,  but  a  talking  parrot  made  strife  between  the  wives 
of  the  two  brothers,  and  this  grew  into  a  quarrel  and 
separation,  Tupi  staying  in  the  land,  and  Guarani  going  off 
with  his  family  into  the  region  of  La  Plata.     Now  there 


39°  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

happens  to  be  a  means  of  checking  this  story,  for  Martius 
says  that  the  name  guarani  (meaning  warrior)  was  first 
given  by  the  Jesuits  to  the  southern  Indians  whom  they 
collected  in  their  missions,  so  that  the  tale  of  the  two 
ancestor -brothers  must  be  a  myth  of  modern  manufacture. 
Such  eponymic  myths  of  national  ancestors  were  not  only 
made  in  ancient  times,  but  are  mixed  up  in  the  chronicles 
of  Old  World  nations  as  though  they  were  real  history. 
The  classical  student  knows  the  legends  of  the  twin  brothers 
Danaos  and  Aigyptos,  ancestors  of  the  Danaoi  (Greeks)  and 
Egyptians ;  and  of  Jlellai,  father  of  the  Hellenes,  whose 
three  sons  Aiolos,  jDoros,  Xouflios,  were  fathers  of  the 
yEolians,  Dorians,  &c. 

Having  looked  at  these  two  frequent  kinds  of  myths 
derived  from  fossil  bones  and  national  names,  it  is  worth 
while  to  notice  how  both  come  together  in  our  own  country. 
The  History  of  the  Britons,  compiled  in  the  12th  century 
by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  relates  that  our  island  was  in 
old  time  called  Albion,  and  was  only  inhabited  by  a  few 
giants ;  but  Brutus,  a  banished  Trojan  prince,  landed  with 
his  followers  and  called  the  land  Britain,  after  his  own 
name,  and  his  companions  Britons.  With  him  came  a 
leader  called  Gorineiis,  and  he  called  the  part  of  the  country 
which  fell  to  him  Corinea  and  his  people  Corineans,  that  is, 
Cornish.  In  that  part  the  giants  were  most  numerous,  and 
one  especially,  named  Goemagot  (elsewhere  called  Gogniagog) 
was  twelve  cubits  high,  and  could  pull  up  an  oak  like  a 
hazel  wand.  On  a  certain  day,  when  there  had  been  a 
battle  and  the  Britons  had  overcome  a  party  of  giants  and 
slain  all  except  this  hugest  monster,  he  and  Corineus  had  a 
wrestling-match,  when  Corineus  caught  the  giant  up  in  his 
arms,  and  running  with  him  to  the  top  of  the  cliff  now 
called  the    Hoe   at   Plymouth,   cast   him    over,   wherefore 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  391 

(says  the  chronicler)  the  place  is  called  "  Goemagot's  leap" 
to  this  day.  Quaint  as  this  legend  is,  it  is  not  hard  to  find 
the  sense  of  it.  It  was  the  fashion  to  trace  the  origin  of 
nations  from  Troy  ;  Brutus  and  Corinei/s  were  invented  to 
account  for  the  names  of  Britain  and  Cornwall;  Goeniagot 
or  Gogmagog\%  the  Biblical  C^'^^and  Magog  rolled  into  one, 
these  personages  being  recognised  in  tradition  as  giants.  But 
why  the  story  of  his  having  been  thrown  over  the  Hoe  at  Ply- 
mouth ?  The  answer  seems  to  be  that  this  is  a  place  where 
the  bones  of  fossil  animals  are  actually  dug  up,  such  as  were 
looked  upon  as  remains  of  giants.  Even  in  modern  times, 
when  excavations  were  being  made  on  the  Hoe  for  the  fortifi- 
cations, huge  jaws  and  teeth  were  found,  which  were  at  once 
settled  by  public  opinion  to  be  the  remains  of  Gogmagog. 

These  are  examples  of  the  myths  easiest  for  modern 
civilised  minds  to  enter  into,  for  they  are  little  more  than 
inferences  or  guesses  as  to  what  may  have  actually  happened, 
worked  up  with  picturesque  details  which  give  them  an  air 
of  reality.  But  to  understand  another  kind  of  myths  we 
must  get  our  minds  into  a  mood  which  is  not  that  of  scientific 
reasoning  in  the  class-room,  but  of  telling  nursery  tales  in 
the  twilight,  or  reading  poetry  in  the  woods  on  a  summer 
afternoon.  Former  chapters  have  shown  how,  in  old  times 
and  among  uncultured  people,  notions  of  the  kind  which 
still  remain  among  us  as  poetic  fancy  were  seriously  believed. 
When  to  the  rude  philosopher  the  action  of  the  world  around 
him  was  best  explained  by  supposing  in  it  nature-life  like 
human  life,  and  divine  nature-souls  like  human  souls,  then  the 
sun  seemed  a  personal  lord  climbing  proudly  up  the  sky,  and 
descending  dim  and  weary  into  the  under-world  at  night ; 
the  stormy  sea  was  a  fearful  god  ready  to  swallow  up  the 
rash  sailor  ;  the  beasts  of  the  forest  were  half-human  in 
thought  and  speech ;  even  the  forest-trees  were  the  bodily 


392  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

habitations  of  spirits,  and  the  woodman,  to  whom  the 
rustling  of  their  leaves  seemed  voices,  and  their  waving 
branches  beckoning  arms,  hewed  at  their  trunks  with  a  half- 
guilty  sense  of  doing  murder.  The  world  then  seemed  to 
be  "  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  on  ;  "  transformation  of 
body  and  transmigration  of  spirit  were  ever  going  on  ;  a 
man  or  god  might  turn  into  a  beast,  a  river,  or  a  tree  ;  rocks 
might  be  people  transformed  into  stones,  and  sticks  trans- 
formed snakes.  Such  a  state  of  thought  is  fast  disappearing, 
but  there  are  still  tribes  living  in  it,  and  they  show  what  the 
men's  minds  are  like  who  make  nature-myths.  When  a 
story-teller  lives  in  this  dreamland,  any  poetic  fancy  becomes 
a  hint  for  a  wonder-tale,  and  though  (one  would  think)  he 
must  be  aware  that  he  is  romancing,  and  that  the  adventures 
he  relates  are  not  quite  history,  yet  when  he  is  dead,  and 
his  story  has  been  repeated  by  bards  and  priests  for  a  few 
generations,  then  it  would  be  disrespectful,  or  even  sacri- 
legious, to  question  its  truth.  This  has  happened  all  over 
the  world,  and  the  Greek  myths  of  the  great  nature-gods 
which  Xenophanes  and  Anaxagoras  ventured  to  disbelieve 
with  such  ill  consequences  to  themselves,  were  of  much 
the  same  fabric  as  those  of  modern  barbarians  like  the 
South  Sea  Islanders.  Let  us  look  at  a  few  nature-myths, 
choosing  such  as  most  transparently  show  how  they  came 
to  be  made. 

The  Tahitians  tell  tales  of  their  sea-god  Hiro,  whose 
followers  were  sailing  on  the  ocean  while  he  was  lulled  to 
sleep  in  a  cavern  in  the  depths  below ;  then  the  wind-god 
raised  a  furious  storm  to  destroy  the  canoe,  but  the  sailors 
cried  to  Hiro,  till,  rising  to  the  surface,  he  quelled  the  storm, 
and  his  votaries  came  safe  to  port.  So  in  Homer,  Poseidon 
the  sea-god,  dweller  in  caves  of  ocean,  sets  on  the  winds 
to  toss  the  frail  bark  of  Odysseus  among  the  thundering 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  393 

waves,  till  Ino  comes  to  his  rescue  and  bids  him  strip 
and  swim  for  the  Phaiakian  shore.  Both  tales  are  word- 
pictures  of  the  stormy  sea  told  in  the  language  of  nature- 
myth,  only  with  different  turns.  The  New  Zealanders  have 
a  story  of  Maui  imprisoning  the  winds,  all  but  the  wild  west- 
wind,  whom  he  cannot  catch  to  shut  into  its  cavern  by 
a  great  stone  rolled  against  its  mouth  ;  all  he  can  do  is  to 
chase  it  home  sometimes,  and  then  it  hides  in  the  cavern, 
and  for  a  while  dies  away.  All  this  is  a  mythic  description 
of  the  weather,  meaning  that  other  winds  are  occasional, 
but  the  west  wind  prevalent  and  strong.  These  New 
Zealanders  had  never  heard  of  the  classic  myth  of  ^olus 
and  the  cave  of  the  winds,  yet  how  nearly  they  had  come 
to  the  same  mythic  fancy,  that  it  is  from  such  blow-holes 
in  the  hill-sides  that  the  winds  come  forth.  The  negroes 
of  the  West  Indies  tell  a  tale  of  the  great  quarrel  between 
Fire  and  Water,  how  the  Fire  came  on  slowly,  stopped  by  the 
stream,  till  he  called  the  Wind  to  his  aid,  who  carried  him 
across  everything,  and  the  great  fight  came  off,  the  Bon  Dieu 
looking  on  from  behind  a  curtain  of  clouds.  It  is  not  likely 
that  these  negro  slaves  had  ever  heard  of  the  twenty-first 
Iliad,  to  know  how  the  same  world-old  contest  of  the  ele- 
ments is  told  in  the  great  battle  between  the  Fire-god  and 
the  Rivers,  when  the  Winds  were  sent  to  help,  and  carried 
the  fierce  flames  onward,  and  the  eels  and  fish  scuttled  hither 
and  thither  as  the  hot  breath  of  the  blast  came  upon  them. 

The  beams  of  light  darting  down  from  the  sun  through 
openings  in  the  clouds  seem  to  have  struck  people's  fancy 
in  Europe  as  being  like  the  rope  over  the  pulley  of  an  old- 
fashioned  draw-well,  for  this  appearance  is  called  in  popular 
phrase,  "  the  sun  drawing  water."  The  Polynesians  also 
see  the  resemblance  of  the  rays  to  cords,  which  they 
say   are   the  ropes  the  sun  is  fastened  by,  and   they   tell 


394  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

a   myth  how  the  sun  once   used    to   go  faster,  till  a  god 
set   a   noose  at   the  horizon  and  caught  him  as  he   rose, 
so  that  he  now  travels  bound  and   slowly  along  his  daily 
appointed  path.  In  English  such  an  expression  as  that  the  sun 
is  "  swallowed  up  by  night  "  is  now  a  mere  metaphor,  but  the 
idea  is  one  which  in  ancient  and  barbaric  times  people  took 
more  seriously.     The  Maoris  have  made  out  of  it  the  story 
of  the  death  of  their  divine  hero  Maui.    You  may  see,  they 
say,  Maui's  ancestress,  Great- Woman-Night,  flashing  and  as 
it  were  opening  and  shutting  out  on  the  horizon  where  sea 
and    sky   come   together ;    Maui  crept  into  her  body  and 
would  have  got  through  unharmed,  but  just  at  that  moment 
the  little  flycatcher,    the   tiwakawaka,    broke  out   with  its 
merry  note  and  awoke  the  Night,  and  she  crushed  Maui. 
That  this  is  really  a  nature-myth  of  the  setting  sun  dying 
as  he  plunges  into  the  darkness,  is  proved  by  the  mention 
of  the  bird,  which  has  the  peculiarity  of  singing  at  sunset. 
Of  all   the  nature-myths  of  the  world,   few   are   so   widely 
spread  as  those  on  this  theme  of  night  and  day,  where  with 
mythic  truth  the  devoured  victims  were  afterwards  disgorged 
or  set  free.    The  Zulu  story-tellers  describe  the  maw  of  tlie 
monster  as  a  country  where  there  are  hills  and  houses  and 
cattle  and  people  living,  and  when  the  monster  is  cut  open, 
all  the  creatures  come  out  from  the  darkness  ;  with  a  neat 
touch  of  nature  which  shows  that  the  story-teller  is  thinking 
of  the  dawn,   the  cock  comes  out  first,  crying,  '■'■  kiikidiiku  ! 
I  see  the  world  !  "     Our  English  version  of  the  old  myth 
is  the    nursery   tale    of  Little    Red   Ridinghood,    but  it   is 
spoilt  by  leaving  out  the  proper  end  (which  German  nurses 
have   kept  up  with  better  memory),  that  when  the  hunter 
ripped  up  the  sleeping  wolf,  out  came  the  little  damsel  in 
her  red  satin  cloak,  safe  and  sound. 

Such  stories  are  fanciful,  but  the  fancy  of  the  myth-maker 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  395 

can  take  yet  further  flights.  The  mythic  persons  as  yet  de- 
scribed have  been  visible  obj  .'cts  hke  the  sun,  or  at  least  what 
can  be  perceived  by  the  senses  and  made  real  objects  of,  such 
as  wind,  or  day.  But  when  the  poet  is  in  the  vein  of  myth- 
making,  whatever  he  can  express  by  a  noun  and  put  a  verb 
to,  becomes  capable  of  being  treated  as  a  person.  If  he 
can  say,  summer  comes,  sleep  falls  on  men,  hope  ris^s, 
justice  demands,  then  he  can  set  up  summer  and  sleep,  hope 
and  justice,  in  human  figures,  dress  them,  and  make  them 
walk  and  talk.  Thus  the  formation  of  myth  is  helped  by  what 
Professor  Max  MUUer  has  called  a  "  disease  of  language." 
This,  however,  is  not  the  whole  matter.  We  saw  in  the  last 
chapter  how  the  notion  of  soul  or  spirit  helped  men  on  to 
the  notion  of  cause.  When  the  cause  of  anything  presents 
itself  to  the  ancient  mind  as  a  kind  of  soul  or  spirit,  then 
the  cause  or  spirit  of  summer,  sleep,  hope,  justice,  comes 
easily  to  look  like  a  person.  No  one  can  really  understand 
old  poetry  without  knowing  this.  Homer  could  fancy  on  the 
field  of  battle  the  awful  Kc)\  whose  figure  was  shov.-n  on  the 
shield  of  Achilles  with  blood-stained  garment  flung  over  her 
shoulders,  as  she  seized  some  warrior  wounded  to  the  death,  or 
dragged  a  corpse  by  the  feet  out  of  the  fighting  throng.  This 
being  is  not  merely  a  word  turned  into  a  reality,  she  is  a 
personal  cause,  a  spirit-reason,  why  one  warrior  is  slain  and 
not  another.  So  far  is  the  idea  of  her  spread  in  Aryan  mytho- 
logy, that  it  appears  again  among  the  Northmen,  when  Odin 
sends  to  every  battle  the  maidens  who  in  Walhalla  serve  the 
feast  and  fill  the  bowls  with  ale  for  the  spirits  of  the  heroes  ; 
these  maidens  are  the  A'alkyriur,  who  guide  the  event  of 
victory,  and  choose  the  warriors  who  shall  fall.  Another 
well-known  mythic  group  shows  again  how  what  to  us 
moderns  are  but  ideas  expressed  in  words,  took  personal 
form  in  the  minds  of  the  ancients.     In  the  classic  books  of 


396  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

Greece  and  Rome  we  read  of  die  diree  fate-spinners,  the 
Moirai  or  Parcee,  and  their  Scanchnavian  counterparts  appear 
in  the  Edda  as  the  three  wise  women  whose  dwelling  is  near 
the  spring  under  the  world-ash  Ygdrasill,  the  Norns  who  fix 
the  lives  of  men.  The  explanation  of  these  three  mythic 
beings  is  that  they  are  in  personal  shape  the  Past,  Present, 
and  Future,  as  is  shown  by  the  names  they  bear,  JJ'^as,  Is, 
Shall  (  Urdhr,  Verdhandi,  Skuld). 

Stories  are  always  changing  and  losing  their  meanings, 
and  from  age  to  age  new  bards  and  tale-tellers  shape  the 
old  myths  into  new  forms  to  suit  new  hearers.  Considering 
how  stories  thus  grow  and  change,  one  must  expect  their 
origins  to  be  as  often  as  not  lost  beyond  recovery.  While, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  may  be  often  possible  to  make  out  what 
they  came  from,  this  must  be  done  cautiously.  Clever 
writers  are  too  apt  to  sit  down  and  settle  the  mythic  origin 
of  any  tale,  as  if  this  could  be  done  by  ingenious  guessing. 
Even  if  it  is  nonsense  and  never  was  intended  for  anything 
else,  the  myth- interpreter  can  find  a  serious  origin  for  it  all 
the  same.  Thus  a  learned  but  rash  mythologist  declares 
that  in  our  English  nursery  rhyme,  "  the  cow  jumped  over 
the  moon,"  is  a  remnant  of  an  old  nature-myth,  describing 
as  a  cow  a  cloud  passing  over  the  moon.  What  is  really 
wanted  in  interpreting  myths  is  something  beyond  simple 
guessing ;  there  must  be  reasons  why  one  particular  guess 
is  more  probable  than  any  other.  It  would  have  been  rash 
to  judge  that  ProvictJieus  the  fire-bringer  is  a  personification 
of  the  wooden  fire-drill  (p.  262),  were  it  not  known  that  the 
Sanskrit  name  of  this  instrument  is  pramantha ;  taken 
together,  the  correspondence  of  name  and  nature  amounts 
to  a  high  probability  that  we  have  got  back  to  the  real  origin 
of  the  Prometheus-legend.  We  may  choose  another  ex- 
ample from  the  mythology  of  India,  in  the  story  of  Vamana, 


XV.]  HISTORY  AND  MYTHOLOGY.  397 

the  tiny  Brahman,  who,  to  humble  the  pride  of  King  Bah, 
begs  of  him  as  much  land  as  he  can  measure  in  three  steps, 
but  when  the  boon  is  granted,  the  little  dwarf  expands  into 
the  gigantic  form  of  Vishnu,  and,  striding  with  one  step 
across  the  earth,  another  across  the  air,  and  a  third  across 
the  sky,  drives  Bali  down  into  the  infernal  regions,  where 
he  still  reigns.  This  most  remarkable  of  all  the  Tom 
Thumb  stories  seems  really  a  myth  of  the  sun,  rising  tiny 
above  the  horizon,  then  swelling  into  majestic  power  and 
crossing  the  universe.  For  Vamana,  the  "  dwarf,"  is  one  of 
the  incarnations  of  Vishnu,  and  Vishnu  was  originally  the 
Sun.  In  the  hymns  of  the  Veda  the  idea  of  his  three 
steps  is  to  be  found  before  it  had  become  a  story,  when  it 
was  as  yet  only  a  poetic  metaphor  of  the  Sun  crossing  the 
airy  regions  in  his  three  strides.  "  Vishnu  traversed  (the 
earth),  thrice  he  put  down  his  foot ;  it  was  crushed  under 
his  dusty  step.  Three  steps  hence  made  Vishnu,  unharmed 
preserver,  upholding  sacred  things." 

It  remains  to  see  how  myths  spread.  Whenever  a  good 
story  is  told,  whether  real  or  made-up  does  not  matter,  it 
becomes  part  of  the  story-teller's  stock,  who  puts  to  it 
any  new  name  that  will  suit,  and  often  succeeds  in 
planting  it  not  only  in  popular  legend,  but  even  in 
history.  There  is  a  fragment  by  Demaratus  preserved 
in  the  collection  of  Stobseus,  where  there  is  related  with 
Greek  names,  as  an  episode  of  the  history  of  Arkadia,  the 
grand  story  which  we  were  taught  as  an  event  of  Roman 
history,  the  legend  of  the  Horatii  and  Curiatii.  Roman 
history,  it  seems,  only  borrowed  it  from  an  earlier  tale, 
much  as  modern  Swiss  history  borrowed  from  older  folklore 
the  tale  of  the  archer  and  the  apple,  to  adorn  their  national 
hero,  Tell.  To  show  how  legend  is  put  together  from 
many  sources,  historical  and  mythical,  let  us  take  to  pieces 


398  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

one  of  the  famous  children's  tales  of  Europe.  Blue  Beard 
was  a  historical  person.  He  was  Gilles  de  Retz,  Sieur  de 
Laval,  Marshal  of  France,  nicknamed  Barbe  Bleue  from 
having  a  beard  of  blue  black  shade.  Persuaded  by  an 
Italian  alchemist  that  his  strength  could  be  restored  by 
bathing  in  the  blood  of  infants,  he  had  many  children 
entrapped  for  this  hideous  purpose  into  his  castle  of 
Champtoce  on  the  Loire,  the  ruins  of  which  are  still  to 
be  seen.  At  last  the  horrible  suspicions  of  the  country  folk 
as  to  what  was  going  on  were  brought  to  proof,  and  the 
monster  was  burnt  at  the  stake  at  Nantes  in  1440.  In  all 
this,  however,  there  is  not  a  word  about  murdered  wives. 
Indeed  the  historical  Blue  Beard,  in  his  character  of  murder- 
ous monster,  seems  to  have  inherited  an  older  tale  belonging 
to  the  wife-murderer  of  Breton  legend,  Comor  the  Cursed, 
Count  of  Poher,  whose  name  and  deeds  are  set  down  to 
near  a  thousand  years  earlier,  in  the  legendary  chronicles 
which  tell  of  him  as  a  usurper  and  tyrant  who  married  and 
murdered  one  wife  after  another,  till  at  last  when  he  had 
wedded  and  killed  the  beautiful  Trifine,  vengeance  overtook 
him,  and  he  was  defeated  and  slain  by  the  rightful  prince. 
It  is  not  easy  to  say  whether  this  is  a  version  of  a  yet  older 
story,  or  whether  there  is  a  historical  foundation  for  it ;  if 
Henry  VIII.  of  England  had  lived  in  those  times,  such  a 
legend  might  have  gathered  round  his  name.  Other  points 
of  the  modern  Blue  Beard  appear  already  in  the  story  of 
Trifine,  her  sending  for  aid  to  her  kinsmen  when  she 
knows  her  danger,  and  her  discovery  of  the  murder  of 
the  former  wives.  This  last,  howe\er,  does  not  come  to 
pass  in  the  modern  way  ;  in  the  legend,  Trifine  goes  down 
into  the  chapel  to  pray  in  the  hour  of  need,  and  there 
the  tombs  of  the  four  murdered  wives  open  and  their 
corpses  stand  upright,  each  with  the  knife  or  cord  or  what- 


XV.]  HISTORY  Ax\D  MYTHOLOGY.  399 

ever  she  was  murdered  with  in  her  hand.  Instead  of  this 
powerful  and  ghastly  scene,  the  modern  version  brings  in 
the  hackneyed  episode  of  the  forbidden  chamber,  which 
had  long  been  the  property  of  story-tellers  for  use  on  suitable 
occasions,  and  is  to  be  found  in  the  Arabian  NigJits.  The 
old  Trifine  legend  has  a  characteristic  ending.  Her  wicked 
husband  pursues  her  into  the  forest  and  cuts  her  head  off,  but 
St.  Gildas  makes  her  body  carry  it  back  to  Comor's  castle, 
which  he  overthrows  by  flinging  a  handful  of  dust  at  it, 
then  he  puts  Trifine's  head  on  for  her  again,  and  she  retires 
into  a  convent  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  The  story-tellers  of 
later  times  prefer  a  more  cheerful  if  more  connnonplace 
finish. 

The  miracle-legend  just  quoted  brings  us  back  to  the 
historical  use  of  myth,  which  was  spoken  of  earlier  in  this 
chapter.  The  story  of  St.  Gildas  bringing  the  fair  Trifine 
back  to  her  castle  with  her  head  in  her  hand,  and  his  after- 
wards putting  it  back  on  her  shoulders,  is  history.  It 
records  the  intellectual  state  of  the  age  when  it  was  held 
edifying  to  tell  such  wonders  of  holy  men,  for  holy  men  were 
believed  able  to  do  them.  Old  tales  which  seem  extravagant 
to  our  minds  are  apt  thus  to  have  historical  value  by  point- 
ing back  to  the  times  when,  seeming  possible,  they  were 
made.  This  is  true  even  of  ^sop's  fables.  In  the  stage  of 
thought  when  human  souls  are  thought  able  to  live  in  animals' 
bodies,  when  a  wolf  may  have  one's  enemy's  soul  in  him, 
or  one's  grandfather  may  be  crawling  on  the  hearth  in  the 
body  of  a  snake,  stories  of  rational  beasts  themselves  seem 
rational.  Among  the  Buddhists,  where  beast-tales  early 
became  moral  apologues,  they  are  told  as  incidents  of  th^ 
many  births  or  transmigrations  of  the  great  founder  of  the 
religion.  It  was  Buddha  himself  who,  as  a  bird,  took  the 
bone  out  of  the  lion's  throat,  and  was  repaid  by  being  told 


400  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap.  xv. 

that  he  was  lucky  to  be  so  well  out  of  it.  It  was  Buddha 
who,  born  in  the  body  of  a  peasant,  listened  to  the  ass  in 
the  lion's  skin,  and  said  he  was  but  an  ass.  That  millions 
of  people  should  have  this  as  part  of  their  sacred  literature 
is  a  fact  of  interest  in  the  study  of  civilization,  warning  us 
not  to  cast  aside  a  story  as  worthless,  because  it  is  mythical. 
For  understanding  the  thoughts  of  old-world  nations,  their 
myths  tell  us  much  we  should  hardly  learn  from  their 
history. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 

SOCIETY. 

Social  Stages,  401 — Family.  402 — Morals  of  Lower  Races,  405 — Public 
Opinion  and  Custom,  408 — Moral  Progress,  410 — Vengeance  and 
Justice,  414 — War,  418 — Property,  419 — Legal  Ceremonies,  423 — 
Family  Power  and  Responsibility,  426 — Patriarchal  and  Military 
Chiefs,  428 — Nations,  432 — Social  Ranks,  434 — Government,  436. 

In  the  reports  of  crimes  which  appear  daily  in  the  news- 
papers of  our  civihzed  land,  such  phrases  often  occur  as 
savage  fury,  barbarous  cruelty.  These  two  words  have  come 
to  mean  in  cornmon  talk  such  behaviour  as  is  most  wild, 
rough,  and  cruel.  Now  no  doubt  the  life  of  the  less  civilized 
people  of  the  world,  the  savages  and  barbariatis,  is  more 
wild,  rough,  and  cruel  than  ours  is  on  the  whole,  but  the 
difference  between  us  and  them  does  not  lie  altogether  in 
this.  As  the  foregoing  chapters  have  proved,  savage  and 
barbarous  tribes  often  more  or  less  fairly  represent  stages  of 
culture  through  which  our  own  ancestors  passed  long  ago, 
and  their  customs  and  laws  often  explain  to  us,  in  ways  we 
should  otherwise  have  hardly  guessed,  the  sense  and  reason 
of  our  own.  It  should  be  understood  that  it  is  out  of  the 
question  to  give  here  even  a  summary  of  the  complicated 
systems  of  society  :  all  that  can  be  done  is  to  put  before  the 
27 


402  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

reader  some  of  its  leading  principles  in  ancient  and  modern 
life. 

Mankind  can  never  have  lived  as  a  mere  struggling  crowd, 

each  for  himself.     Society  is  always  made  up  of  families  or 

households  bound  together  by  kindly  ties,  controlled  by  rules 

of  marriage  and  the  duties  of  parent  and  child.     Yet  the 

forms  of  these  rules  and  duties   have  been  very  various. 

Marriages  may  be  shifting  and  temporary  pairing,  or  unions 

where  the  husband   may  have  several  wives,  and  the  wife 

several   husbands.        It    is  often    hard  to   understand   the 

family  group  and  its   ties  in  the  rude  and  ancient  world. 

Thus  it  seems  to  us  a  matter  of  course  to  reckon  family 

descent  in  the  male  line,  and  this  is  now  put  in  the  clearest 

way  by  the  son  taking  the  father's  surname.     But  in  lower 

stages  of  civilization,  on  both  sides  of  the  globe,  many  tribes 

take    the    contrary   idea  as  a  matter  of  course.     In  most 

Australian  tribes  the  children  belong  to  the  mother's  clan, 

not  the   father's  ;  so   that   in  native    wars  father  and  son 

constantly  meet  as  natural  enemies.     Chiefship  often  goes 

down  in  the  royal  mother's  line,  as  among  the  Natchez,  who 

had  their  sun-temples  in  what  is  now  Louisiana.     Yet  this 

widespread  law   of  female    descent,   deep  as  it  lies  in  the 

history  of   society,  had  been   so  lost   sight  of  among  the 

ancient  civilized  nations,  that  when  Herodotus  noticed  it 

among  the  Lykians,  who  took  their  names  from  their  mothers 

and   traced    their    pedigrees    through  the  female  branches 

only,  the  historian  fancied  this  was  a   peculiar  custom,  in 

which  they  were  unlike  all  other  people.      In   the  savage 

and  barbaric  world  there  prevails  widely  the  rule  called  by 

McLennan  exogamy  or  marrying-out,  which  forbids  a  man 

to  take  a  wife  of  his  own  clan — an  act  which  is  considered 

criminal,   and  may  even   be   punished  with  death.      It  is  a 

strange  contrast  to  the  popular  idea  that  savage  life  has  no 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  403 

rules,  when  we  find  Australian  tribes  where  every  man  is 
bound  to  marry  into  the  particular  clan  which  is,  so  to  speak, 
the  wife-clan  to  his  own.  Among  the  Iroquois  of  North 
America  the  children  took  the  clan-name  or  totem  of  the 
mother ;  so  if  she  were  of  the  Bear  clan,  her  son  would  be 
a  Bear,  and  accordingly  he  might  not  marry  a  Bear  girl,  but 
might  take  a  Deer  or  Heron.  Such  laws  appear  also  among 
higher  nations  who  reckon  descent  in  the  male  line.  Thus 
in  India  a  Brahman  is  not  to  marry  a  wife  whose  clan-name 
(her  "cow-stall,"  as  they  say)  is  the  same  as  his ;  nor  may  a 
Chinese  take  a  wife  of  his  own  surname.  Though  the  family 
and  tribe  rules  of  the  savage  and  barbaric  world  are  too  in- 
tricate to  be  fully  discussed  here,  there  are  some  instructive 
points  to  which  attention  should  be  called.  Marriage  is  in 
early  stages  of  society  a  civil  contract.  Thus,  among  the 
wild  hunting- tribes  of  Nicaragua,  the  lad  who  wishes  a  girl 
for  a  wife  kills  a  deer  and  lays  it  with  a  heap  of  firewood  at 
the  door  of  her  parents'  hut,  which  symbolic  act  is  his 
offer  to  hunt  and  do  man's  work  ;  if  the  gift  is  accepted,  it  is 
a  marriage,  without  further  ceremony.  Among  peoples  of 
higher  culture  more  formal  promises  and  ceremonies  come 
in,  with  feasts  and  gatherings  of  kinsfolk  ;  and  then,  as  in 
other  important  matters  of  life,  the  priest  is  called  in  to  give 
divine  blessing  and  sanction  to  the  union.  Where  this  is 
done,  a  wedding  has  come  to  be  very  different  from  w^hat  it 
was  in  the  rough  times  of  marriage  by  capture,  such  as 
might  be  seen  in  our  own  day  among  fierce  forest  tribes  in 
Brazil,  where  the  warriors  would  make  forays  on  distant 
villages  and  by  main  force  bring  home  wives.  Ancient 
tradition  knows  this  practice  well,  as  where  the  men  of 
Benjamin  carry  off  the  daughters  of  Shiloh  dancing  at  the 
feast,  and  in  the  famous  Roman  tale  of  the  rape  of  the 
Sabines,  a  legend  putting  in  historical  form  the  wife-capture 


404  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

which  in  Roman  custom  remained  as  a  ceremony.  What 
most  clearly  shows  what  a  recognised  old-world  custom 
it  was,  is  its  being  thus  kept  up  as  a  formality  where  milder 
manners  really  prevail.  It  had  passed  into  this  state  among 
the  Spartans,  when  Plutarch  says  that  though  the  marriage 
was  really  by  friendly  settlement  between  the  famiUes,  the 
bridegroom's  friends  went  through  the  pretence  of  carrying 
off  the  bride  by  violence.  Within  a  few  generations  the 
same  old  habit  was  kept  up  in  Wales,  where  the  bridegroom 
and  his  friends,  mounted  and  armed  as  for  war,  carried 
off  the  bride ;  and  in  Ireland  they  used  even  to  hurl 
spears  at  the  bride's  people,  though  at  such  a  distance 
that  no  one  was  hurt,  except  now  and  then  by  accident, 
as  happened  when  one  Lord  Hoath  lost  an  eye,  which 
mischance  seems  to  have  put  an  end  to  this  curious  relic 
of  antiquity.  It  was  one  of  the  consequences  of  increase 
of  property  in  the  world,  'that  the  practice  of  buying 
wives  came  in,  as  where  a  Zulu  bargains  with  a  girl's 
people  to  let  him  have  her  perhaps  for  five  oxen  or  ten. 
This  was  the  custom  in  England  among  our  barbaric  fore- 
fathers, as  appears  in  the  ^V^est-Saxon  law  of  Ine — "  If  a 
man  buy  a  wife,"  &c.  Cnut  somewhat  later  forbade  the 
wife  to  be  sold,  but  the  husband  might  give  something 
of  his  own  will.  It  is  an  interesting  problem  in  the  history 
of  law  how  the  money  once  paid  as  the  biide's  price 
passed  into  a  gift  or  dower  for  her;  some  provision 
of  this  kind  became  necessary  when  the  widow  was  no 
longer  provided  for  by  being  taken,  as  she  would  have 
been  in  a  ruder  state  of  society,  as  a  wife  by  her  husband's 
brother. 

Marriage  has  been  here  spoken  of  first,  because  upon  it 
depends  the  family,  on  which  the  whole  framework  of  society 
is  founded.  What  has  been  said  of  the  ruder  kinds  of  family 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  405 

union  among  savages  and  barbarians  shows  that  there  cannot 
be  expected  from  them  the  excellence  of  those  well-ordered 
households  to  which  civilized  society  owes  so  much  of  its 
goodness  and  prosperity.  Yet  even  among  the  rudest  clans 
of  men,  unless  depraved  by  vice  or  misery  and  falling  to 
pieces,  a  standard  of  family  morals  is  known  and  lived  by. 
Their  habits,  judged  by  our  notions,  are  hard  and  coarse, 
yet  the  family  tie  of  sympathy  and  common  interest  is  already 
formed,  and  the  foundations  of  moral  duty  already  laid,  in 
the  mother's  patient  tenderness,  the  father's  desperate  valour 
in  defence  of  home,  their  daily  care  for  the  little  ones,  the 
affection  of  brothers  and  sisters,  and  the  mutual  forbearance, 
helpfulness,  and  trust  of  all.  From  the  family  this  extends 
to  a  wider  circle.  The  natural  way  in  which  a  tribe  is  formed 
is  from  a  family  or  group,  which  in  time  increases  and 
divides  into  many  households,  still  recognising  one  another 
as  kindred,  and  this  kinship  is  so  thoroughly  felt  to  be  the 
tie  of  the  whole  tribe,  that,  even  when  there  has  been  a 
mixture  of  tribes,  a  common  ancestor  is  often  invented  to 
make  an  imaginary  bond  of  union.  Thus  kindred  and  kind- 
fiess  go  together — two  words  whose  common  derivation 
expresses  in  the  happiest  way  one  of  the  main  principles  of 
social  life. 

Among  the  lessons  to  be  learnt  from  the  life  of  rude  tribes 
is,  how  society  can  go  on  without  the  policeman  to  keep 
order.  It  is  plain  that  even  the  lowest  men  cannot  live 
quite  by  what  the  Germans  call  "  faustrecht,"  or  "  fist-right," 
and  we  call  "  club  law."  The  strong  savage  does  not  rush 
into  his  weaker  neighbour's  hut  and  take  possession,  driving 
the  owner  out  into  the  forest  with  a  stone-headed  javelin 
sent  flying  after  him.  Without  some  control  beyond  the 
mere  right  of  the  stronger,  the  tribe  would  break  up  in  a 
week,  whereas  in  fact  savage  tribes  last  on  for  ages.     Under 


4o6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

favourable  circumstances,  where  food  is  not  too  scarce  nor 
war  too  wasting,  the  Ufe  of  low  barbaric  races  may  be  in  its 
rude  way  good  and  happy.  In  the  West  Indian  islands 
where  Columbus  first  landed,  lived  tribes  who  have  been 
called  the  most  gentle  and  benevolent  of  the  human  race. 
Schomburgk,  the  traveller,  who  knew  the  warlike  Caribs 
well  in  their  home  life,  draws  a  paradise-like  picture  of 
their  ways,  where  they  have  not  been  corrupted  by  the  vices 
of  the  white  men ;  he  saw  among  them  peace  and  cheerful- 
ness and  simple  family  affection,  unvarnished  friendship,  and 
gratitude  not  less  true  for  not  being  spoken  in  sounding 
words  ;  the  civilized  world,  he  says,  has  not  to  teach  them 
morality,  for  though  they  do  not  talk  about  it,  they  live  in  it. 
At  the  other  side  of  the  world  in  New  Guinea,  Kops,  the 
Dutch  explorer,  gives  much  the  same  account  of  the  Papuans 
of  Dory,  who  live  in  houses  built  on  piles  in  the  water, 
like  the  old  lake-men  of  Switzerland  ;  he  speaks  of  their  mild 
disposition,  their  inclination  to  right  and  justice,  their  strong 
moral  principles,  their  respect  for  the  aged  and  love  for  their 
children,  their  living  without  fastenings  to  their  houses — for 
theft  is  considered  by  them  a  grave  offence,  and  rarely 
occurs.  Among  the  rude  non-Hindu  tribes  of  India,  Eng- 
lish officials  have  often  recorded  with  wonder  the  kindliness 
and  cheerfulness  of  the  rude  men  of  the  mountains  and  the 
jungle,  and  their  utter  honesty  in  word  and  deed.  Thus  Sir 
Walter  Elliot  mentions  a  low  poor  tribe  of  South  India, 
whom  the  farmers  employ  to  guard  their  fields,  well  knowing 
that  they  would  starve  rather  than  steal  the  grain  in  their 
charge ;  and  they  are  so  truthful  that  their  word  is  taken  at 
once  in  disputes  even  with  their  richer  neighbours,  for 
people  say  "a  Kurubar  always  speaks  the  truth."  Of 
course  these  accounts  of  Caribs  and  Papuans  show  them  on 
the  friendly  side,  while  those  who  have  fought  with  them 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  407 

call  them  monsters  of  ferocity  and  treachery.  But  cruelty 
and  cunning  in  war  seem  to  them  right  and  praiseworthy ;  and 
what  we  are  here  looking  at  is  their  home  peace-life.  It  is 
clear  that  low  barbarians  may  live  among  themselves  under 
a  fairly  high  moral  standard,  and  this  is  the  more  instructive 
because  it  shows  what  may  be  called  natural  morality. 
Among  them  religion,  mostly  concerned  with  propitiating 
souls  of  ancestors  and  spirits  of  nature,  has  not  the  strong 
moral  influence  it  exerts  among  higher  nations;  indeed 
their  behaviour  to  their  fellows  is  little  affected  by  divine 
command  or  fear  of  divine  punishment.  It  has  more  to  do 
with  their  life  being  prosperous  or  miserable.  When  want 
or  the  miseries  of  war  upset  their  well-being,  they  (like  their 
betters)  become  more  brutal  and  selfish  in  their  ways,  and 
moral  habits  are  at  all  times  low  among  the  comfortless 
hordes  of  savages  whose  daily  struggle  for  existence  is  too 
harsh  for  the  gentler  feelings  to  thrive.  Moreover,  there  is 
this  plain  difference  between  low  and  high  races  of  men,  that 
the  dull-minded  barbarian  has  not  power  of  thought  enough 
to  come  up  to  the  civilized  man's  best  moral  standard.  The 
wild  man  of  the  forest,  forgetful  of  yesterday  and  careless 
of  to-morrow,  lolling  in  his  hammock  when  his  wants  are 
satisfied,  has  httle  of  the  play  of  memory  and  foresight 
which  is  ever  unrolling  before  our  minds  the  panorama  of 
our  own  past  and  future  life,  and  even  sets  us  in  thought  in 
the  places  of  our  fellows,  to  partake  of  their  lives  and  enter 
into  their  joys  and  sorrows.  Much  of  the  wrong-doing  of 
the  world  comes  from  want  of  imagination.  If  the  drunkard 
could  see  before  him  the  misery  of  next  year  with  something 
of  the  vividness  of  the  present  craving,  it  would  overbalance 
it.  Ofttimes  in  the  hottest  fury  of  anger,  the  sword  has  been 
sheathed  by  him  across  whose  mind  has  flashed  the  prophetic 
picture   of  the  women   weeping  round  the   blood-stained 


4oS  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

corpse.  The  lower  races  of  men  are  so  wanting  in 
foresight  to  resist  passion  and  temptation,  that  the  moral 
balance  of  a  tribe  easily  goes  wrong,  while  they  are  rough 
and  wantonly  cruel  through  want  of  intelligent  sympathy 
with  the  sufferings  of  others,  much  as  children  are  cruel 
to  animals  through  not  being  able  to  imagine  what  the 
creatures  feel.  What  we  now  know  of  savage  life  will 
prevent  our  falling  into  the  fancies  of  the  philosophers  of 
the  last  century,  who  set  up  the  "  noble  savage "  as  an 
actual  model  of  virtue  to  be  imitated  by  civilized  nations. 
But  the  reality  is  quite  as  instructive,  that  the  laws  of  virtue 
and  happiness  may  be  found  at  work  in  simple  forms  among 
tribes  who  make  hatchets  of  sharpened  stones  and  rub 
sticks  together  to  kindle  fire.  Their  life,  seen  at  its  best, 
shows  with  unusual  clearness  the  great  principle  of  moral 
science,  that  morality  and  happiness  belong  together — -in  fact 
that  morality  is  the  method  of  happiness. 

It  must  not  be  supposed  that  in  any  state  of  civilization 
a  man's  conduct  depends  altogether  on  his  own  moral  sense 
of  right  and  wrong.  Controlling  forces  of  society  are  at 
work  even  among  savages,  only  in  more  rudimentary  ways 
than  among  ourselves.  Public  opinion  is  already  a  great 
power,  and  the  way  in  which  it  acts  is  particularly  to  be 
noticed.  Whereas  the  individual  man  is  too  apt  to  look  to 
his  own  personal  interest  and  the  benefit  of  his  near  friends, 
these  private  motives  fall  away  when  many  minds  come 
together,  and  public  opinion  with  a  larger  selfishness 
takes  up  the  public  good,  encouraging  the  individual  to 
set  aside  his  private  wishes  and  give  up  his  property  or 
even  his  life  for  the  commonwealth.  The  assembled  tribe 
can  crush  the  mean  and  cowardly  with  their  scorn,  or  give 
that  reward  of  glory  for  which  the  high-spirited  will  risk 
goods  and  life.     Travellers  have  remarked  that  the  women, 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  409 

however  down-trodden,  know  how  to  make  their  influence 
felt  in  this  way,  and  many  a  warrior  whose  heart  was  faiUng 
him  in  face  of  the  enemy,  has  turned  from  flight  when  he 
thought  of  the  girls'  mockery  when  he  should  slink  home  to 
the  village,  safe  but  disgraced.  This  pressure  of  public 
opinion  compels  men  to  act  according  to  custom,  which 
gives  the  rule  as  to  what  is  to  be  done  or  not  done  in  most 
affairs  of  life.  Explorers  of  wild  countries,  not  finding  the 
machinery  of  police  they  are  accustomed  to  at  home,  have 
sometimes  rashly  concluded  that  the  savages  lived  un- 
restrained at  their  own  free  will.  We  have  here  already 
noticed  that  this  is  a  mistake,  for  life  in  the  uncivilized 
world  is  fettered  at  every  turn  by  chains  of  custom.  To 
a  great  extent  it  is  evident  that  customs  have  come  into 
existence  for  the  benefit  of  society,  or  what  was  considered 
so.  For  instance,  it  is  generally  held  right  in  wild  countries 
that  hospitality  shall  be  freely  given  to  all  comers,  for 
every  one  knows  he  may  want  it  any  day  himself.  But 
whether  a  custom  is  plainly  useful  or  not,  and  even  when 
its  purpose  is  no  longer  known,  once  established  as  a 
custom  it  must  be  conformed  to.  Savages  may  have  finger- 
joints  cut  off,  or  undergo  such  long  and  severe  fasts  that 
many  die  ;  but  often  the  only  reason  they  can  give  for 
inflicting  such  suffering  on  themselves  is  that  it  was  the 
custom  of  their  ancestors.  In  some  parts  of  Australia 
custom  forbade  to  the  young  hunters,  and  reserved  for  the 
old  men,  much  of  the  wild  fowl  and  the  best  joints  of  the 
large  game.  No  doubt  this  was  in  some  measure  for  the 
public  benefit,  as  the  experienced  elders,  who  were  past  the 
fatigue  of  hunting,  were  able  to  stay  in  camp,  make  nets  and 
weapons,  teach  the  lads,  and  be  the  repositories  of  wisdom 
and  the  honoured  counsellors  of  the  tribe.  Nothing  could 
prove  more  plainly  how  far  society  is,  even  among  such 


4IO  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

wild  men  of  the  desert,  from  being  under  the  mere  sway  of 
brute  force. 

Thus  communities,  however  ancient  and  rude,  always 
have  their  rules  of  right  and  wrong.  But  as  to  what  acts 
have  been  held  right  and  wrong,  the  student  of  history 
must  avoid  that  error  which  the  proverb  calls  measuring 
other  people's  corn  by  one's  own  bushel.  Not  judging 
the  customs  of  nations  at  other  stages  of  culture  by  his  own 
modern  standard,  he  has  to  bring  his  knowledge  to  the 
help  of  his  imagination,  so  as  to  see  institutions  where  they 
belong  and  as  they  work.  Only  thus  can  it  be  made  clear 
that  the  rules  of  good  and  bad,  right  and  wrong,  are  not 
fixed  alike  for  all  men  at  all  times.  For  an  example  of 
this  principle,  let  us  observe  how  people  at  different  stages  of 
civilization  deal  with  the  aged.  Some  of  the  lower  races  take 
much  care  of  their  old  folks  even  after  they  are  fallen  into 
imbecility,  treating  them  with  almost  gentle  considerateness 
and  very  commonly  tending  them  till  death,  when  respect 
to  the  living  ancestor  passes  into  his  worship  as  an  ancestral 
spirit.  But  among  other  tribes  filial  kindness  breaks  down 
earlier,  as  among  those  fierce  Brazilians  who  knock  on  the 
head  with  clubs  the  sick  and  aged,  and  even  eat  them, 
whether  they  find  their  care  too  burdensome,  or  whether 
they  really  think,  as  they  say,  that  it  is  kind  to  end  a  life 
no  longer  gladdened  with  fight  and  feast  and  dance.  We 
realize  the  situation  among  roving  tribes.  The  horde  must 
move  in  quest  of  game,  the  poor  failing  creature  cannot 
keep  up  in  the  march,  the  hunters  and  the  heavily  laden 
women  cannot  carry  him  ;  he  must  be  left  behind.  Many  a 
traveller  has  beheld  in  the  desert  such  heartrending  scenes 
as  Catlin  saw  when  he  said  farewell  to  the  white-haired  old 
Puncah  chief,  all  but  blind  and  shrunk  to  skin  and  bone, 
crouched  shivering  by  a  few  burning  sticks,  for  his  shelter  a 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  411 

buffalo-hide  set  up  on  crutches,  for  his  food  a  dish  of 
water  and  a  few  half-picked  bones.  This  old  warrior  was 
abandoned  at  his  own  wish  when  his  tribe  started  for  new 
hunting-grounds,  even  as  years  before,  he  said,  he  had  left 
his  own  father  to  die  when  he  was  no  longer  good  for  any- 
thing. When  a  nation  settled  in  the  agricultural  state  has 
reached  something  of  wealth  and  comfort,  there  is  no 
longer  the  excuse  of  necessity  for  killing  or  abandoning  the 
aged.  Yet  history  shows  how  long  the  practice  was  kept 
up  even  in  Europe,  partly  with  the  humane  intent  of 
putting  an  end  to  lingering  misery,  but  more  through  the 
survival  of  a  custom  inherited  from  harder  and  ruder 
times.  The  Wends  in  what  is  now  Germany  practised 
the  hideous  rite  of  putting  the  aged  and  infirm  to  death, 
cooking  and  eating  them,  much  as  Herodotus  describes 
the  old  Massagetce  as  doing.  In  Sweden  there  used  to 
be  kept  in  the  churches  certain  clumsy  wooden  clubs, 
called  "family- clubs,"  of  which  some  are  still  preserved, 
and  with  which  in  ancient  times  the  aged  and  hope- 
lessly sick  were  solemnly  put  to  death  by  their  kinsfolk. 
It  is  interesting  to  trace  in  the  old  German  records 
the  change  from  such  hard  ancient  barbarism  to  gentler 
manners,  when  the  infirm  old  house-father,  dividing  his 
substance  among  his  children,  is  to  sit  henceforth  well 
cared  for  in  the  "cat's  place"  by  the  hearth.  One  of 
the  marks  of  advancing  civilization  was  the  growing  sense 
of  the  sacredness  of  human  life,  even  apart  from  its  use 
and  pleasure,  and  under  this  feeling  the  cutting  short  of 
even  a  burdensome  and  suffering  existence,  which  our 
ancestors  resorted  to  without  reproach,  has  come  to  be 
looked  upon  with  horror. 

It   must   be  clearly  understood  also  that  the  old-world 
rules  of  moral  conduct  were  not  the  same  towards  all  men. 


412  AxNTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

A  man  knew  his  duty  to  his  neighbour,  but  all  men  were  not 
his  neighbours.  This  is  very  clearly  seen  in  the  history  of 
men's  ideas  of  manslaughter  and  theft.  The  slaying  of  a 
man  is  scarcely  held  by  the  law  of  any  people  to  be  of 
itself  a  crime,  but  on  the  contrary  it  has  been  regarded  as 
an  allowable  or  praiseworthy  act  under  certain  conditions, 
especially  in  self-defence,  war,  revenge,  punishment,  and 
sacrifice.  Yet  no  known  tribe,  however  low  and  ferocious, 
has  ever  held  that  men  may  kill  one  another  indiscrimi- 
nately, for  even  the  savage  society  of  the  desert  or  the 
jungle  would  collapse  under  such  lawlessness.  Thus  all 
men  acknowledge  some  law  "thou  shall  not  kill,"  but  the 
question  is  how  this  law  applies.  It  is  instructive  to  see 
how  it  woiks  among  those  fierce  tribes  who  approve  the 
killing  of  men  simply  as  a  proof  of  valour.  Thus  the  young 
Sioux  Indian,  till  he  had  killed  his  man,  was  not  allowed 
to  stick  the  feather  in  his  head-dress  and  have  the  title  of 
brave  or  warrior ;  he  could  scarcely  get  a  girl  to  marry  him 
till  he  had  "  got  the  feather."  So  the  young  Dayak  of  Borneo 
could  not  get  a  wife  till  he  had  taken  a  head,  and  it  was  thus 
with  the  skull  or  scalp  which  the  Naga  warrior  of  Asam  had 
to  bring  home,  thereby  qualifying  himself  to  be  tattooed 
and  to  marry  a  wife,  who  had  perhaps  been  waiting  years 
for  this  ugly  marriage-licence.  The  trophy  need  not  have 
been  taken  from  an  enemy,  and  might  have  been  got  by 
the  blackest  treachery,  provided  only  that  the  victim  were 
not  of  the  slayer's  own  tribe.  Yet  these  Sioux  among 
themselves  hold  manslaughter  to  be  a  crime  unless  in  blood- 
revenge  ;  and  the  Dayaks  punish  murder.  This  state  of 
things  is  not  really  contradictory  ;  in  fact  its  explanation  lies 
in  the  one  word  "  tribe."  The  tribe  makes  its  law,  not  on 
an  abstract  principle  that  manslaughter  is  right  or  wrong, 
but  for  its  own  preservation.     Their  existence  depends  on 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  413 

holding  their  own  in  deadly  strife  with  neighbouring  tribes, 
and  thus  they  put  a  social  premium  on  the  warrior's  proof  of 
valour  in  fight  against  the  enemy,  though  in  these  degenerate 
days  they  allow  the  form  to  be  meanly  fulfilled  by  bringing 
in  as  a  warrior's  trophy  the  head  of  some  old  woman  or 
wretched  waylaid  stranger.  In  this  simple  contrast  between 
one's  own  people  and  strangers,  the  student  will  find  a  clue 
to  the  thought  of  right  and  wrong  running  through  ancient 
history,  and  slowly  passing  into  a  larger  and  nobler  view. 
The  old  state  of  things  is  well  illustrated  in  the  Latin 
word  hostis,  which,  meaning  originally  stranger,  passed  quite 
naturally  into  the  sense  of  enemy.  Not  only  is  slaying  an 
enemy  in  open  war  looked  on  as  righteous,  but  ancient 
law  goes  on  the  doctrine  that  slaying  one's  own  tribesman 
and  slaying  a  foreigner  are  crimes  of  quite  different  order, 
while  killing  a  slave  is  but  a  destruction  of  property.  Nor 
even  now  does  the  colonist  practically  admit  that  killing  a 
brown  or  black  man  is  an  act  of  quite  the  same  nature  as 
killing  a  white  countryman.  Yet  the  idea  of  the  sacredness 
of  human  life  is  ever  spreading  more  widely  in  the  world, 
as  a  principle  applying  to  mankind  at  large. 

The  history  of  the  notion  of  theft  and  plunder  follows 
partly  the  same  lines.  In  the  lower  civilization  the  law, 
"  thou  shalt  not  steal,"  is  not  unknown,  but  it  applies  to 
tribesmen  and  friends,  not  to  strangers  and  enemies.  Among 
the  Ahts  of  British'  Columbia,  Sproat  remarks  that  an  article 
placed  in  an  Indian's  charge  on  his  good  faith  is  perfectly 
safe,  yet  thieving  is  a  common  vice  where  the  property 
of  other  tribes  or  of  white  men  is  concerned.  But,  he 
says,  it  would  be  unfair  to  regard  thieving  among  these 
savages  as  culpable  in  the  same  degree  as  among  ourselves, 
for  they  have  no  moral  or  social  law  forbidding  thieving 
between  tribe  and  tribe,  which  has  been  commonly  practised 


414  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

for  generations.  Thus,  although  the  Africans  within  their  own 
tribe-hmits  have  strict  rules  of  property,  travellers  describe 
how  a  Zulu  war-party,  who  have  stealthily  crept  upon  a 
distant  village  and  massacred  men,  women,  and  children, 
will  leave  behind  them  the  ransacked  kraal  flaring  on  the 
horizon  and  return  with  exulting  hearts  and  loads  of 
plunder.  The  old-world  law  of  a  warlike  people  is  well 
seen  among  the  ancient  Germans  in  Caesar's  famous 
sentence,  "  Robberies  beyond  the  bounds  of  each  com- 
munity have  no  infamy,  but  are  commended  as  a  means  of 
exercising  youth  and  diminishing  sloth."  Even  in  the  midst 
of  modern  civilization,  a  declaration  of  war  may  still  carry 
society  back  to  the  earlier  stages  of  plunder  and  prize- 
money-  But  in  peace  the  safety  of  property  as  well  as  life 
is  becoming  more  settled  in  the  world.  The  extradition 
treaties  by  which  criminals,  deprived  of  their  old  refuge 
over  the  border,  are  now  given  up  to  justice  in  the  country 
where  they  oftended,  mark  the  modern  tendency  to  unite 
nations  in  one  community,  which  recognises  among  all  its 
members  mutual  right  and  duty. 

Hitherto  we  have  been  looking  at  right  and  wrong  chiefly 
as  worked  by  men's  own  moral  feelings  and  by  public 
opinion.  But  stronger  means  have  at  all  times  been 
necessary.  It  is  now  reckoned  one  of  the  regular  duties 
of  civilization  to  have  a  criminal  law  to  punish  wrong-doers 
with  fine,  imprisonment,  blows,  and  even  death.  This 
system,  however,  only  gradually  arose  in  the  world,  and 
history  can  show  plain  traces  of  how  it  grew  up  from  the 
early  state  of  things  when  there  were  as  yet  no  professional 
judges  or  executioners,  but  it  was  every  man's  right  and  duty 
to  take  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  and  that  law  was  what 
we  now  call  vengeance.  When  in  barbaric  life  fierce  passion 
breaks  loose  and  a  man  is  slain,  this  rule  of  vengeance  comes 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  415 

into  action.     How  it  works  as  one  of  the  great  forces  of 
society  may  well  be  seen  among  the  Australians.     As  Sir 
George  Grey  says  in  his  account  of  it,  the  holiest  duty  a 
native  is  called  on  to  perform  is  to  avenge  the  death  of  his 
nearest  relation.     If  he  left  this   duty  unfulfilled,  the  old 
women  would  taunt  him  ;  if  he  were  unmarried,  no  girl  would 
speak  to  him ;  if  he  had  wives,  they  would  leave  him ;  his 
mother  would  cry  and  lament  that  she  had  given  birth  to  so 
degenerate  a  son,  his  father  would  treat  him  with  contempt, 
and  he  v,^ould  be  a  mark  for  public  scorn.     But  what  is  to 
be  done  if  the  murderer  escapes,  as  must  in  so  wild  and 
thinly  peopled  a  country  be  easy  ?     Native  custom  goes  on 
the  ancient  doctrine  that  the  criminal's  whole  family  are  re- 
sponsible ;  so  that  when  it  is  known  that  a  man  has  been 
slain,  and  especially  when  the  actual  culprit  has  escaped,  his 
kinsfolk  run  for  their  lives  ;  the  very  children  of  seven  years 
old  know  whether  they  are  of  kin  to  the  manslayer,  and,  if 
so,  they  are  off  at  once  into  hiding.     Here  then  we  come  in 
view  of  two  principles  which   every  student  of  law  should 
have   clearly  in  his  mind  in  tracing  its  history  up  from  its 
lowest  stages.     In  the  primitive  law  of  vengeance  of  blood, 
he  sees  society  using  for  the  public  benefit  the  instinct  of 
revenge  which  man  has  in  common  with  the  lower  animals ; 
and  by  holding  the  whole  family  answerable  for  the  deed 
of  one  of  its  members,  the  public  brings  the  full  pressure 
of  family  influence  to  bear  on  each  individual  as  a  means  of 
keeping  the  peace.     No  one  who  sees  the  working  of  blood- 
vengeance  can  deny  its  practical  reasonableness,  and  its  use 
in  restraining  men  from  violence  while  there  are  as  yet  no 
judges  and   executioners.     Indeed  among  all  savages  and 
barbarians  the  avenger  of  blood,  little  as  he  thinks  it  himself 
in  his  wild  fury,  is  doing  his  part  toward  saving  his  people 
from  perishing  by  deeds  of  blood.    Unhappily  his  usefulness 


4i6  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [cHAP. 

is  often  marred  through  ignorance  and  dehision  turning  his 
vengeance  against  the  innocent.  These  Austrahans  are 
among  the  many  savages  who  do  not  see  why  anybody 
should  ever  die  unless  he  is  killed,  so  they  account  for  what 
we  call  natural  death  by  settling  it  that  some  enemy  killed 
the  sufferer  by  magic  art,  wounding  him  with  an  invisible 
weapon,  or  sending  a  disease-demon  to  gnaw  his  vitals. 
Therefore,  when  a  man  dies,  his  kinsmen  set  themselves  to 
find  out  by  divination  what  malignant  sorcerer  did  him  to 
death,  and  when  they  have  fixed  on  some  one  as  the  secret 
enemy  the  avenger  sets  out  to  find  and  slay  him  ;  then  of 
course  there  is  retaliation  from  the  other  side,  and  a  heredi- 
tary feud  sets  in.  This  is  one  great  cause  of  the  rancorous 
hatred  between  neighbouring  tribes  which  keeps  savages  in 
ceaseless  fear  and  trouble. 

Passing  to  higher  levels  of  civilization,  among  the  nations 
of  the  ancient  world  we  still  find  the  law  of  blood-vengeance, 
but  it  is  being  gradually  modified  by  the  civilization  which 
in  time  ousts  it  altogether.  Thus  the  law  of  the  Israelites, 
while  still  authorizing  the  avenger  of  blood,  provides  that 
there  shall  be  cities  of  refuge,  and  that  the  morally  inno- 
cent manslayer  shall  not  be  as  the  wilful  murderen  Among 
nations  where  wealth  has  been  gathered  together,  and  espe- 
cially where  it  has  come  to  be  measured  by  money,  the  old 
fierce  cry  for  vengeance  sinks  into  a  claim  for  compensa- 
tion. In  Arabia  to  this  day  the  earlier  and  later  stages  may 
be  seen  side  by  side  ;  while  the  roaming  Beduin  tribes  of  the 
desert  carry  on  blood-feuds  from  generation  to  generation 
with  savage  ferocity,  the  townsfolk  feel  that  life  can  hardly  go 
on  with  an  assassin  round  every  street-corner,  so  they  take 
the  blood-money  and  loose  the  feud.  This  state  of  things 
is  instructive  as  being  like  that  of  our  own  early  ancestors 
when  the  Teutonic  law  was  still  that  a  man  took  vengeance 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  417 

for  hurt  done  to  him  or  his,  unless  he  compounded  it. 
The  Anglo-Saxon  word  for  such  composition  was  wer-gild, 
probably  meaning  "man-money,"  200  shillings  for  a  free  man, 
less  for  lower  folk,  and  less  for  a  Welshman  than  an  English- 
man. Again,  where  the  rule  of  vengeance  is  a  life  for  a  liie, 
lesser  hurts  are  also  repaid  in  kind,  which  is  the  Roman  lex 
talionis,  or  "  law  of  the  like  " — retaliation.  This  is  plainly  set 
forth  in  the  Jewish  law,  life  for  life,  eye  for  eye,  tooth  for  tooth, 
wound  for  wound,  stripe  for  stripe.  It  is  still  law  in  Abyssinia, 
where  not  long  since  a  mother  prosecuted  a  lad  who  had 
accidentally  fallen  from  a  fruit-tree  on  her  little  son  and 
killed  him ;  the  judges  decided  that  she  had  a  right  to  send 
another  son  up  into  the  tree  to  drop  on  the  boy  who  had  un- 
intentionally caused  the  first  one's  death,  which  remedy 
however  she  did  not  care  to  avail  herself  of  Of  course 
retaliation  came  to  be  commuted  into  money,  as  when  old 
English  laws  provide  that,  if  any  one  happen  to  cut  off  the 
fist  or  foot  of  a  person,  let  him  render  to  him  the  half  of  a 
man's  price,  for  a  thumb  half  the  price  of  a  hand,  and  so  on 
down  to  ^s.  for  a  little  finger  and  ^d.  for  a  little-finger  nail. 
In  the  times  we  live  in,  justice  has  passed  into  a  higher 
stage,  where  the  State  takes  the  duty  of  punishing  any  serious 
wilful  hurt  done  to  its  citizens.  Reading  some  murderous 
tale  of  a  Corsican  "  vendetta,"  we  hardly  stop  to  think  of  it 
as  a  relic  of  ancient  law  lingering  in  a  wild  mountain  island. 
Yet  our  criminal  law  grew  out  of  such  private  vengeance,  as 
is  still  plain  to  those  who  attend  to  traces  of  the  past,  when 
they  hear  such  phrases  as  "the  vengeance  of  the  law," 
or  think  what  is  meant  by  the  legal  form  by  which  a 
private  person  is  bound  over  to  prosecute,  as  though  he  must 
still  be  suing,  as  he  would  have  done  in  long-past  ages,  for 
his  own  revenge  or  compensation.  It  is  now  really  the  State 
that  is  seeking  to  punish  the  criminal  for  the  ends  of  public 

23 


4iS  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [cHAr. 

justice.  The  avenger  of  blood,  once  the  guardian  of  public 
safety,  would  now  be  himself  punished  as  a  criminal  for 
taking  the  law  into  his  own  hands,  while  the  moralists,  now 
that  the  conditions  of  society  are  changed,  lay  it  down  that 
vengeance  is  sinful. 

Law,  however,  though  it  has  so  beneficially  taken  the 
place  of  private  vengeance,  has  not  fully  extended  its  sway 
over  the  larger  quarrels  between  State  and  State.  The  rela- 
tion of  private  vengeance  to  public  war  is  well  seen  among 
rude -tribes,  such  as  inhabit  the  forests  of  Brazil.  When  a 
murder  is  done  within  the  tribe,  then  of  course  vengeance 
lies  between  the  two  families  concerned ;  but  if  the  murderer 
is  of  another  clan  or  tribe,  then  it  becomes  a  public  wrong. 
The  injured  community  hold  council,  and  mostly  decide  for 
war  if  they  dare;  then  a  war-party  sets  forth,  in  which  the 
near  kinsmen  of  the  murdered  man,  their  bodies  painted 
with  black  daubs  to  show  their  deadly  office,  rush  foremost 
into  the  fight.  Among  neighbouring  tribes  the  ordinary  way 
in  which  war  begins  is  by  some  quarrel  or  trespass,  then  a 
man  is  killed  on  one  side  or  the  other,  and  the  vengeance 
for  his  death  spreads  into  blood-feud  and  tribal  war  ever 
ready  to  break  out  from  generation  to  generation.  This 
barbaric  state  of  things  lasted  far  on  into  the  history  of 
Europe.  It  was  old  German  law  that  any  freeman  who  had 
been  injured  in  body,  honour,  or  estate  might,  witli  the  help 
of  his  own  people,  avenge  himself  if  he  would  not  take  the 
legal  commutation  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  had  the  right  of  private 
war.  It  was  a  turning-point  in  English  history  when  King 
Edmund  made  a  law  to  restrain  this  "  unrighteous  fighting," 
but  it  was  not  stopped  at  once,  especially  in  Northumberland, 
and  we  know  how  it  went  on  into  modern  times  between 
clan  and  clan  in  the  wild  Scotch  Highlands.  Long  after 
the  mere  freeman  ceased  to  go  to  war  with  his  neighbours, 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  419 

there  were  nobles  who  stood  to  their  old  right.  As  late  as 
the  time  of  Edward  IV.  Lord  Berkeley  and  his  followers 
fought  a  battle  with  Lord  Lisle  at  Nibley  Green  in  Glouces- 
tershire. Lord  Lisle  was  slain,  and  in  the  end  Lord  Berkeley 
compounded  by  a  money  payment  to  the  widow.  Freeman, 
who  in  his  Comparative  Politics  mentions  this  curious  in- 
cident of  fifteenth-century  history,  thinks  it  the  last  English 
example  either  of  private  war  or  the  payment  of  the  wer- 
gild. The  law  of  England  which  forbids  the  levying  of 
private  war  represents  one  of  the  greatest  steps  in  national 
progress.  The  State  now  replaces,  by  the  justice  of  legal 
tribunals,  the  barbaric  expedients  of  private  vengeance  and 
private  war.  But  State  and  State  still  fight  out  their  quarrels 
in  public  war,  which  then  becomes  on  a  larger  scale  much 
what  deadly  feud  used  to  be  between  clan  and  clan. 

The  civil  law  of  property  may,  like  the  criminal  law,  be 
traced  from  the  ideas  of  old  times.  A  fair  notion  may  be 
had  of  what  early  rules  of  property  were  like,  by  noticing 
what  they  are  in  the  uncivilised  world  still.  Among  the 
lower  races,  the  distinction  which  our  lawyers  make  between 
real  and  personal  property  appears  in  a  very  intelligible  way. 
Of  the  land  all  have  the  use,  but  no  man  can  be  its  absolute 
owner.  The  simplest  land-law,  which  is  also  a  game-law, 
is  found  among  tribes  who  live  chiefly  by  hunting  and  fish- 
ing. Thus  in  Brazil  each  tribe  had  its  boundaries  marked 
by  rocks,  trees,  streams,  or  even  artificial  landmarks,  and 
trespass  in  pursuit  of  game  was  held  so  serious  that  the 
offender  might  be  slain  on  the  spot.  At  this  stage  of 
society  in  any  part  of  the  world,  every  man  has  the  right 
to  hunt  within  the  bounds  of  his  own  tribe,  and  the  game 
only  becomes  private  property  when  struck.  Thus  there  is 
a  distinct  legal  idea  of  common  property  in  land  belonging 
to  the  clan  or  tribe.     There  is  also  a  clear  idea  of  family 


420  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

property :  the  hut  belongs  to  the  family  or  group  of  fami-* 
lies  who  built  it ;  and  when  they  fenced  in  and  tilled  the 
plot  of  ground  hard  by,  this  also  ceased  to  be  common 
land,  and  became  the  property  of  the  families,  at  least 
while  they  occupied  it.  To  each  flimily  belonged  also 
the  hut-furniture,  such  as  hammocks,  mealing-stones,  and 
earthen  pots.  At  the  same  time  personal  ownership  appears, 
though  still  under  the  power  of  the  family,  through  the 
father  or  head.  Personal  or  individual  property  was  chiefly 
what  each  wore  or  carried — the  man's  weapons,  the  orna- 
ments and  scanty  clothing  of  both  sexes,  things  which  they 
had  some  power  to  do  as  they  liked  with  during  life,  and  at 
death  very  commonly  took  away  with  them  to  the  world 
beyond  the  grave  (see  p.  346).  Here  then  we  find  barbarians 
already  acquainted  with  the  ideas  of  common  land,  family 
freehold,  family  and  personal  property  in  movables,  which 
run  through  the  systems  of  old-world  law.  Not  that  they 
are  worked  out  in  the  same  way  everywhere.  Thus  in  the 
village  communities  which  had  so  great  a  part  in  settling 
Asia  and  Europe,  and  whose  traces  still  remain  in  modern 
England,  not  only  the  hunting-grounds  and  meadows  were 
held  in  common,  but  the  families  did  not  even  own  the 
ploughed  fields,  which  were  tilled  by  common  labour  or 
re-allotted  from  time  to  time  among  the  households,  so 
that  the  family  freehold  did  not  reach  beyond  its  house  and 
garden-plot.  At  various  times  in  history,  the  rise  of  military 
nations  revolutionised  the  earlier  ways  of  land-holding.  In 
invaded  countries,  lands  of  the  conquered  were  distributed 
by  the  king  or  leader  to  be  held  by  his  captains  or  soldiers 
doing  military  service  in  return  ;  the  greatest  and  best-known 
example  is  the  feudal  system  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
It  is  instructive  to  notice  how  in  England,  before  the  Norman 
Conquest,  the  folk-land,  the  common  property  of  the  state. 


xvj.]  SOCIETY,  421 

was  already  passing  into  the  hands  of  the  king  to  grant  at 
his  pleasure.  Or  in  a  military  state  the  sovereign  may  be- 
come the  universal  landlord,  allowing  his  subjects  to  hold 
lands  on  payment  of  an  annual  tribute  or  tax — a  system  well 
known  in  ancient  Egypt  and  modern  India.  In  Roman 
history  we  find  the  state,  or  families  owning  large  lands, 
letting  portions  of  them  as  farms  to  tenants  who  paid  part  of 
the  produce  in  return.  This  shows  the  beginning  of  rent,  a 
thing  unknown  to  primitive  law.  While  these  changes  were 
coming  on  as  to  the  land,  movable  property  was  becoming 
more  and  more  important.  War-captives  kept  as  slaves  to 
till  the  soil  became  part  of  the  wealth  of  the  family,  and  the 
pastoral  life  brought  in  cattle,  not  only  for  food,  but  to 
plough  the  fields.  The  manufacture  of  valuable  goods,  the 
growth  of  commerce,  the  accumulation  of  treasure,  and  the 
use  of  money,  added  other  possessions.  If  now  we  look 
at  our  modern  ways  of  dealing  with  property,  it  is  seen  what 
great  changes  we  have  made  by  taking  it  out  of  the  hands 
of  the  family  and  allowing  an  individual  owner  to  hold  and 
dispose  of  it — an  arrangement  suited  to  our  age  of  shifting 
trading  enterprise.  Even  land  is  bought  and  sold  by  indi- 
viduals, though  the  law,  by  making  a  field  and  cottage 
transferable  by  a  different  process  and  with  greater  formality 
and  cost  than  a  diamond  necklace  or  a  hundred  chests  of 
tea,  keeps  up  traces  of  the  old  system  under  which  it  could 
only  have  changed  hands,  if  at  all,  with  difficulty  and  by 
the  consent  of  many  parties.  Through  all  changes  it  is 
instructi\  e  to  notice  how  far  the  old  family  system  of  pro- 
perty holds  its  place.  This  is  well  seen  by  considering  what 
becomes  of  a  man's  property  when  he  dies.  The  two  most 
usual  arrangements  made  in  early  times  are  the  simplest, 
namely,  either  that  the  family  shall  go  on  living  on  the 
undivided  property,  or  that  it  shall  be  divided  among  the 


422  '  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap- 

children,  or  sons.  When  the  eldest  son  is  patriarchal  head 
of  the  family,  to  keep  up  this  dignity  he  may  have  an  extra  or 
double  portion  for  his  "birth-right"  ;  this  is  a  well-known 
ancient  rule,  common  to  the  Aryan  and  Semitic  nations,  for 
it  is  both  in  the  Hindu  laws  of  Manu  and  in  Deuteronomy. 
In  France  at  this  day  tiie  ancient  principle  of  division 
is  legally  enforced,  and  the  family  take  their  shares 
as  a  matter  of  right.  In  England  the  power  of  wills 
has  become  so  great,  that  in  theory  a  man  may  leave 
his  property  to  whom  he  pleases  ;  but  practically  this  is 
kept  within  bounds  by  moral  feeling  and  public  opinion, 
which  condemn  it  as  an  unnatural  act  for  a  man  to  strip 
his  own  children  to  endow  a  stranger  or  a  hospital.  If 
the  Englishman  dies  without  leaving  a  will,  the  law  re- 
cognises the  rights  of  his  family  by  fairly  dividing  among 
them  his  personal  property.  It  is  otherwise  with  the  land 
or  real  estate,  which  in  most  cases  will  pass  to  the  eldest 
son.  Why  the  law  should  thus  allow  the  claims  of  the  rest 
of  the  family  to  the  money,  but  not  to  the  land,  is  an  in- 
teresting point  of  history.  The  reader  of  Maine's  Ancient 
Law  will  find  how,  in  Europe  about  a  thousand  years  ago, 
lands  held  as  fiefs  came  to  pass  to  the  eldest  son,  not  by 
any  means  for  the  purpose  of  enriching  him  by  disinheriting 
the  others,  but  that  the  united  kinsfolk  might  live  upon 
tlie  land  and  defend  it  under  him  as  chief  of  the  litde 
clan.  If  in  modern  times  the  head  of  the  family  has 
become  possessed  of  the  family  estate  for  his  own  use, 
this  is  because  old  laws  working  under  new  circumstances 
are  apt  to  produce  results  which  those  who  framed  them 
never  foresaw.  Primogeniture  did  not  prevail  over  the 
whole  of  England,  but  older  rules  of  family  inheritance 
have  in  sotne  ])arts  lasted  on  from  times  before  feudal- 
ism.    The  best  known  of   these  is  where  at  the  father's 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  423 

death  the  land  is  divided  among  the  sons,  as  Domesday 
Book  shows  was  usual  in  Edward  the  Confessor's  time.  This 
is  now  known  as  gavelkind,  or  the  custom  of  Kent,  but 
it  appears  elsewhere ;  for  instance,  Kentish  Town  in  the 
north  of  London  is  supposed  to  have  its  name  from  lands 
so  held  there.  There  even  exists  in  England  a  rule  of 
inheritance  which  seems  to  belong  to  a  yet  earlier  state  of 
society.  This  is  the  custom  of  borough-english,  by  which, 
for  instance  at  Hackney  or  Edmonton,  if  a  man  die  intes- 
tate the  land  passes  to  his  youngest  son.  This  right  of  the 
youngest,  strange  as  it  seems  to  us,  is  still  found  here  and 
there  in  Europe  and  Asia".  It  is  a  reasonable  law  of  in- 
heritance of  the  settlers  in  a  new  country,  where  there  is  yet 
plenty  of  land  to  be  had  for  the  taking,  and  the  sons  as 
they  grow  up  and  marry  go  out  and  found  new  homesteads 
of  their  own.  But  the  youngest  stays  at  home  and  takes 
care  of  the  old  father  and  mother ;  he  is,  as  the  Mongols 
say,  the  "fire-keeper,"  and  at  their  death  he  naturally 
succeeds  to  the  family  home.  This  is  one  of  the  hundreds 
of  cases  of  customs  which  seem  arbitrary  and  unreasonable, 
because  they  have  lost  their  sense  by  lasting  on  from  the 
state  of  Hfe  to  which  they. properly  belonged. 

In  the  old  days  before  there  were  lawyers  and  law  books, 
solemn  acts  and  rights  were  made  plain  to  all  men  by 
picturesque  ceremonies  suited  to  lay  hold  of  unlettered 
minds.  Many  of  these  old  ceremonies  are  still  kept  up 
and  show  their  meaning  as  plainly  as  ever.  For  example, 
when  two  parties  wish  to  make  firm  peace  or  friendship, 
they  will  go  through  the  ceremony  of  mixing  their  blood, 
so  as  to  make  themselves  blood-relations.  Travellers  often 
now  ally  themselves  in  such  blood-brotherhood  with  bar- 
barous tribes  ♦  an  account  of  East  Africans  performing  the 
rite  describes  the  two  sitting  together  on  a  hide  so  as  to 


424  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

become  "of  one  skin,"  and  then  they  made  little  cuts  in 
one  another's  breasts,  tasted  the  mixed  blood,  and  rubbed 
it  into  one  another's  wounds.  Thus  we  find  still  going  on 
in  the  world  a  compact  which  Herodotus  describes  among 
the  ancient  Lydians  and  Scythians,  and  which  is  also  men- 
tioned in  the  Sagas  of  tlie  old  Northmen  and  the  ancient 
Irish  legends.  It  would  be  impossible  to  put  more  clearly 
the  great  principle  of  old-world  morals,  that  a  man  owes 
friendship  not  to  mankind  at  large  but  only  to  his  own  kin, 
so  that  to  entitle  a  stranger  to  kindness  and  good  faith  he 
must  become  a  kinsman  by  blood.  With  much  the  same 
thought  even  rude  tribes  hold  that  eating  and  drinking 
together  is  a  covenant  of  friendship,  for  the  guest  becomes 
in  some  sort  one  of  the  household,  and  has  to  be  treated  as 
morally  one  of  the  family.  This  helps  to  cxplam  the  vast 
importance  people  everywhere  give  to  the  act  of  dining 
together.  Among  the  millions  of  India  at  this  day  the  very 
constitution  of  society  turns  on  the  caste  rules  whom  a  man 
may  or  may  not  eat  with.  Among  the  marriage  ceremonies  of 
the  world,  one  well  known  in  the  far  East  is  that  the  couple 
by  eating  together  out  of  one  dish  become  man  and  wife. 
How  ceremony  expresses  meaning  in  still  more  striking 
metaphor  is  seen  in  the  Hindu  marriage,  where  the  skirts  of 
the  bridegroom  and  bride's  garments  are  tied  together  as  a 
sign  of  union,  and  the  bride  steps  on  a  stone  to  sliow  she 
Avill  be  as  firm  as  stone.  A  custom  is  described  among 
English  vagrants  of  the  last  century,  where  a  man  and 
woman  would  join  hands  across  the  body  of  a  dead  beast, 
thus  promising  that  they  would  be  joined  till  death  should 
part  them.  Among  the  dramatic  ceremonies  known  to 
European  law  is  the  scene  in  an  ancient  Roman  law-court, 
where  a  man  put  in  his  claim  to  a  slave  by  stepping  forward 
and  touching  him  with  a  rod  which  represented  a  spear  ;  or 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  425 

when  in  old  Germany  a  piece  of  land  was  transferred  by 
the  owner  handing  over  a  sod  of  the  turf  with  a  green  twig 
stuck  up  in  it;  or  when  in  feudal  times  the  vassal  placed  his 
hands  between  the  lord's,  and  so  "putting  himself  in  his 
hands"  became  his  man. 

There  were  ceremonies  in  old-world  law  which  were  more 
than  such  gesture-language.  Barbaric  law  early  began  to 
call  on  magical  and  divine  powers  to  help  in  the  difficult 
tasks  of  discovering  the  guilty,  getting  the  truth  out  of  wit- 
nesses, and  making  a  promise  binding.  This  led  to  the 
widespread  system  of  ordeals  and  oaths.  Some  ordeals 
have  really  served  to  discover  truth  by  their  effect  on  the 
conscience  of  the  evil-doer.  It  is  thus  with  the  mouthful  of 
rice  taken  by  all  of  a  suspected  household  in  India,  which 
the  thief's  nervous  fear  often  prevents  him  from  swallowing. 
This  used  to  be  done  in  England  with  the  corsnjed  or  trial- 
slice  of  consecrated  bread  or  cheese ;  even  now  peasants 
have  not  forgotten  the  old  formula,  "  May  this  bit  choke  me 
if  I  lie!  "  Another  of  the  kw  ordeals  that  linger  in  popular 
memory  may  be  seen  when,  in  some  out-of-the-way  farm- 
house, all  suspected  of  a  theft  are  made  to  hold  a  bible 
hanging  to  a  key,  which  is  to  turn  in  the  hands  of  the 
thief;  this  keeps  up  a  form  of  divination  practised  in  the 
classic  world  with  a  sieve  hanging  by  the  points  of  an  open 
pair  of  shears.  Ordeals  have  had  their  day,  and  are  now 
discarded  from  the  laws  of  the  mosi  civilised  nations. 
Nowadays  one  has  to  go  to  such  countries  as  Arabia  to 
find  the  ordeal  by  hot  iron  recognised  by  law,  as  it  was  in 
England  in  the  days  when  the  legend  was  told  of  Queen 
Emma  walking  over  the  red-hot  ploughshares  ;  the  conjurors 
now  go  through  this  ancient  performance  as  a  circus-show. 
Yet  even  of  late  years,  English  rustics  have  been  known  to 
duck  some  wretched  old  woman  supposed  to  be  a  witch,  little 


426  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

knowing  that  they  were  keeping  up  the  ancient  water-ordeal, 
where  the  sacred  element  rejects  the  wrong  and  accepts 
the  right,  so  that  the  guilty  floats  and  the  innocent  sinks 
• — a  judicial  rite  which  forms  part  of  the  old  Hindu  law- 
book of  Manu,  and  which  in  English  law,  till  the  beginning 
of  the  13  th  century,  was  a  legal  means  of  trying  those  accused 
of  murder  or  robbery.  Ordeals  by  which  the  taker  brings 
down  present  harm  on  himself  if  he  is  guilty,  are  of  much 
the  same  nature  as  oaths.  It  is  usual,  however,  for  oaths 
to  call  down  future  punishment,  in  this  life  or  after  death, 
as  when,  in  Russian  law-courts  in  Siberia,  the  curious  spec- 
tacle may  be  seen  of  bringing  in  a  bear's  head  that  an 
Ostyak  may  bite  at  it,  thereby  calling  on  a  bear  to  bite  him 
if  he  is  forsworn.  The  legal  oatlis  in  our  own  country  bear 
in  their  gestures  the  traces  of  high  antiquity.  In  Scotland 
the  witness  holds  up  his  hand  toward  heaven,  the  gesture 
by  which  Greek  and  Jew  took  the  supreme  Deity  to  witness, 
and  called  down  divine  vengeance  on  the  perjurer.  In 
England  the  kissing  of  the  book  comes  from  the  practice  of 
touching  a  halidome,  or  sacred  object,  as  an  ancient  Roman 
touched  the  altar,  or  Harold  the  casket  of  relics.  The 
form  "So  help  me  God,"  is  inherited  from  ancient  Teutonic- 
Scandinavian  law,  under  which  the  old  Northman,  touching 
the  blood-daubed  ring  on  the  altar,  swore  "  So  help  me 
Frey,  and  Niordh,  and  the  almighty  god  "  (that  is,  Thor).  The 
first  and  last  of  these  are  the  two  old  English  gods  whose 
names  we  keep  up  in  Friday  and  Thursday. 

To  come  now  to  the  last  subject  of  this  volume,  the 
history  of  government.  Complicated  as  are  the  political 
arrangements  of  civilised  nations,  their  study  is  made  easier 
by  their  simple  forms  being  already  found  in  savage  and 
barbaric  life.  The  foundation  of  societ}',  as  has  been 
already  seen,  is  the  self-government  of  each  family.      Its 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  427 

authority  is  apt  to  be  vested  in  the  head  of  the  household  ; 
thus  among  low  barbaric  tribes  in  the  Brazilian  forests, 
the  father  may  do  as  he  pleases  with  his  own  wives  and 
children,  even  selling  them  for  slaves,  and  the  neighbours 
have  no  right  or  wish  to  interfere.  Even  what  civilised 
nations  now  take  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  every  human 
being  coming  into  the  world  has  a  right  to  live,  is  scarcely 
recognised  by  the  lower  races.  In  such  a  life  of  hardship 
as  the  Australians  and  many  savages  lead,  new-born  children 
are  often  put  out  of  the  way  from  sheer  need,  because 
the  parents  have  already  as  many  mouths  as  they  can  feed. 
That  among  such  tribes  this  comes  of  hardness  of  life, 
rather  than  hardness  of  heart,  is  often  seen  when  the 
parents  will  go  through  fire  and  water  to  save  the  very 
child  they  were  doubting  about,  a  few  weeks  before, 
whether  it  should  live  or  die.  Even  where  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  not  so  severe,  the  wretched  custom  of  infan- 
ticide remains  still  common  in  the  world.  Nothing  more 
clearly  shows  that  European  nations  came  up  from  a  barbaric 
stage  than  the  law  which  the  ancient  Romans  had  m  com- 
mon with  our  Teutonic  ancestors,  that  it  was  for  the  father 
of  the  family  to  say  whether  the  new-born  child  should  be 
brought  up  or  exposed.  Once  become  a  member  of  the 
household,  the  child  has  a  firmer  assurance  of  life  ;  and 
Avhen  the  young  barbarian  grows  up  to  be  a  warrior,  and 
becomes  himself  the  head  of  a  new  household,  he  is  usually 
a  free  man.  But  the  oldest  Roman  law  shows  the  head  of 
the  family  ruling  with  a  strictness  hardly  imaginable  to  our 
modern  minds,  for  the  father  might  chastise  or  put  to 
death  his  grown-up  sons,  give  them  in  marriage  or  divorce 
them,  and  even  sell  them.  With  the  advance  of  civilization 
in  Rome  as  elsewhere,  the  sons  gradually  gained  their 
rights  of  person  and  property;  and  in  comparing  old-world 


428  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

life  with  our  own,  it  is  plainly  seen  how  Christianity,  look- 
ing not  to  family  rights  but  to  individual  souls,  tended 
toward  personal  freedom.  With  all  the  growth  of  individual 
freedom  in  modern  life,  the  best  features  of  family  despot- 
ism remain  in  force ;  it  is  under  parental  authority  that 
children  are  trained  for  their  future  duties,  and  the  law  is 
careful  how  it  gives  the  child  personal  rights  against  the 
parent,  lest  it  should  weaken  the  very  cement  which  binds 
society  together.  As,  however,  the  family  ceased  to  be  so 
perfect  a  little  kingdom  within  itself,  the  individual  became 
responsible  for  his  own  doings.  We  have  seen  how,  in 
rude  society,  when  a  crime  is  committed,  the  family  of  the 
aggrieved  take  vengeance  on  the  culprit's  family.  Modern 
ideas  of  justice  may  teach  us  that  this  is  wrong,  that  it  is 
punishing  the  innocent  for  the  guilty.  But  in  the  lower 
barbaric  life  it  is  practically  the  best  way  to  keep  order, 
and  to  those  who  live  under  it  it  seems  right  and  natural, 
as  where,  among  the  Australians,  when  one  of  a  family  has 
done  a  murder  the  others  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
they  are  guilty  too.  Far  from  this  idea  being  confined  to 
savages,  the  student  becomes  familiar  with  it  in  the  law 
of  ancient  nations,  such  as  Greece  and  Rome.  Here  it 
will  be  enough  to  quote  the  remarkable  i:)assage  from  the 
Hebrew  law  which  at  once  records  what  the  old  principle 
was,  and  reforms  it  by  bringing  in  the  ideas  of  higher  juris- 
jorudence  : — "  Tlie  fathers  shall  not  be  put  to  death  for  the 
children,  neither  shall  the  children  be  put  to  death  for  the 
fathers  :  every  man  shall  be  put  to  death  for  his  own  sin." 
(Deut.  xxiv.  1 6.) 

Wherever  the  traveller  in  wild  regions  meets  a  few  families 
roaming  together  over  the  desert,  or  comes  upon  a  cluster 
of  huts  by  a  stream  in  the  tropical  forest,  he  may  find,  if  he 
looks  closely  enough,  some  rudiments  of  government;  for 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  429 

there  is  business  which  concerns  the  whole  httle  community, 
such  as  a  camping-ground  to  be  chosen,  or  a  fishery  quarrel 
to  be  settled  with  the  next  tribe  down  the  river.  Even  among 
the  Greenlanders,  as  little  governed  a  people  as  almost  any 
in  the  world,  it  was  noticed  that  when  several  families  lived 
together  all  the  winter,  one  weather-wise  old  fisherman 
would  have  the  north  end  of  the  snow-house  for  his  place 
and  be  appointed  to  look  after  the  inmates,  taking  care 
about  their  keeping  the  snow  walls  in  repair,  and  going 
out  and  coming  in  together  so  as  not  to  waste  heat ;  also 
when  they  went  out  in  hunting  parties  an  experienced 
pathfinder  would  be  chosen  as  leader.  It  is  common 
to  find  among  rude  tribes  such  a  headman  or  chief, 
chosen  as  the  most  important  or  shrewdest ;  but  he  has 
little  or  no  actual  authority  over  the  families,  and  gets 
his  way  by  persuasion  and  public  opinion.  Naturally  such 
a  headman's  family  is  of  consequence  already,  or,  if  not,  he 
makes  them  so,  and  thus  there  is  a  tendency  for  his  office  to 
become  hereditary.  In  tribes  formed  under  the  rule  of 
female  kinship,  where  the  chief 's  own  son  may  be  out  of  the 
succession,  the  new  chosen  chief  will  probably  be  a  younger 
brother  or  a  nephew  on  the  mother's  side.  Under  the  rule  of 
succession  on  the  father's  side,  which  is  so  much  more 
familiar  to  us,  the  very  growth  of  the  family  brings  on  a 
patriarchal  government.  Suppose  a  single  household  to 
move  out  into  the  wilds  and  found  a  new  settlement,  it 
begins  under  the  rule  of  the  father,  who,  as  new  huts  are 
built  round  the  first  home,  remains  head  of  the  growing 
clan  ;  but  as  old  age  comes  on,  his  eldest  son  more  and 
more  acts  in  his  name,  and  at  his  death  will  be  recognised 
as  succeeding  him  in  the  headship  of  the  community.  Here 
then  is  seen  the  rise  of  the  hereditary  chief  or  patriarch  of 
the  tribe,  first  in  rank  as  representing  the  ancestor,  and  with 


430  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

more  or  less  of  real  autliority.  But  liere  also  there  is  a 
practical  power  of  setting  the  successor  aside  if  he  is  too 
timid  or  wilful  or  dull,  when  perhaps  his  uncle  or  brother 
will  be  put  in  his  place,  though  the  line  of  succession  is  not 
set  aside  by  this.  The  patriarchal  system  extends  far  on  in 
civilization.  It  is  not  confined  to  one  particular  race  or 
nation,  but  may  at  this  day  be  studied  alike  among  the 
brown  hill-men  of  India  and  the  negroes  of  West  Africa. 
To  us  it  is  especially  well  known  from  the  Old  Testament, 
which  shows  it  in  the  form  it  takes  in  a  pastoral  nation, 
and  which  still  may  be  seen  with  little  change  among  the 
Arabs  of  the  desert,  whose  clans  and  tribes  are  governed  by 
their  patriarchs,  the  sheykhs  or  old  men.  Not  less  does  it 
lie  at  the  foundation  of  the  politics  of  the  Aryan  race,  where 
its  remains  may  still  be  traced  in  the  village  communities  of 
India  and  Russia,  the  village  elder  presiding  in  the  council 
of  "  white-heads  "  being  the  modern  representative  of  the 
earlier  patriarch  with  the  chiefs  of  younger  branches  of  the 
clan  around  him.  Under  such  mild  rule,  people  of  few 
wants  may  prosper  in  time  of  peace,  in  the  kindly  commu- 
nism which  is  possible  where  there  are  no  rich  and  no  poor. 
Tlie  weak  point  of  such  a  society  is  that  it  can  hardly 
advance,  for  civilization  is  at  a  standstill  where  it  is  regu- 
lated by  ancestral  custom  administered  by  great-grandfathers. 
Everywhere  in  the  world,  in  war  some  stronger  and 
more  intelligent  rule  than  this  is  needed  and  found.  The 
changes  which  have  shaped  the  descendants  of  wild  hordes 
into  civilized  nations  have  been  in  great  measure  the  work 
of  the  war-chief. 

When  among  such  uncultured  tribes  war  breaks  out,  the 
peace-chief  is  pushed  aside  and  a  leader  chosen,  or  in  war- 
like tribes  the  war-chief  may  be  the  acting  head  at  all  times. 
Of  coui  se  he  is  a  tried  warrior,  and  his  endurance  may  even 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  43  r 

be  put  to  a  special  examination,  as  when  the  Caribs  would 
test  a  candidate  for  war-chief  by  mercilessly  flogging  and 
scratching  him,  smoking  him  in  a  hammock  over  a  fire  of 
green  leaves,  or  burying  him  up  to  the  middle  in  a  nest  of 
stirging-aiits.  We  even  find  in  America  the  principle  of 
competitive  examination  for  king,  when  Chilian  tribes  would 
choose  as  their  chief  the  man  who  could  lift  the  biggest 
tree  on  his  shoulder  and  carry  it  longest.  In  these  rude 
countries  the  change  is  wonderful  when  war  turns  the 
loose  crowd  into  an  army  under  a  leader,  with  powers  of 
life  and  death  to  enforce  discipline.  When  Martius  the 
naturalist  was  travelling  through  a  Brazilian  forest  with  a 
Miranha  chief,  they  came  to  a  fig-tree  where  the  skeleton  of 
a  man  was  bound  to  the  trunk  with  cords  of  creepers,  and 
the  chief  grimly  explained  that  this  was  one  of  his  men  who 
had  disobeyed  orders  by  not  summoning  a  neighbouring 
tribe  to  help  against  the  invading  Umauas,  and  he  had  him 
tied  up  there  and  shot  to  death  with  arrows.  In  barbarous 
countries  the  tribe-chief  and  the  war-chief  may  be  found 
side  by  side  ;  but  when  the  power  of  the  bow  and  spear  once 
asserts  itself,  it  is  apt  to  grow  further.  Throughout  history,  war 
gives  the  bold  and  able  leader  a  supremacy  which  may  nomi- 
nally end  with  the  campaign,  but  which  tends  to  pass  into 
dictatorship  for  life.  Military  government  in  civil  affairs  is, 
in  fact,  despotism  ;  and  if  the  military  leader  can  thus  become 
the  tyrant  of  his  own  land,  still  more  can  he  rule  with  a  rod 
of  iron  a  conquered  country.  The  negro  kingdom  of 
Dahome,  the  result  of  two  centuries  of  barbaric  military 
rule,  is  an  astounding  specimen  of  what  a  people  Avill 
submit  to  from  a  despot  whom  they  regard  as  a  kind  of 
deity;  they  approach  him  grovelling  on  all-fours,  and 
throwing  dust  over  their  heads  ;  the  whole  nation  are 
his  slaves,  whose  lives  he  takes  at  will ;  the  women  are  all 


432  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

his,  to  give  or  sell ;  the  land  is  all  his,  and  none  owns  any- 
thing but  at  his  pleasure.  The  kings  of  Asiatic  nations  have 
been  theoretically  as  absolute  as  this,  but  practically  in 
advancing  civilization  the  king  makes  or  sanctions  laws  which 
bind  himself  and  his  successors,  making  society  more  fixed 
and  life  more  tolerable.  Also,  as  soon  as  religion  becomes 
a  power  in  the  state,  it  becomes  joined  or  mixed  with  civil 
and  military  government.  Thus  among  negroes  the  high- 
priest  and  war-chief  may  be  the  two  heads  of  the  govern- 
ment, while  the  Incas  of  Peru,  as  descendants  and  re- 
presentatives of  the  divine  sun,  ruled  their  nation  with 
paternal  despotism  which  settled  for  the  people  what  they 
should  do  and  eat  and  wear,  and  whom  they  should  marry. 
In  such  a  kingdom  royalty  must  be  hereditary  in  the 
divine  ruling  family.  Indeed,  monarchy,  however  gained, 
tends  to  become  hereditary,  and  especially  the  military 
usurper  will  found  a  dynasty  on  the  model  of  a  patri- 
archal chief.  Thus  sovereignty  may  be  elective,  hereditary, 
military,  ecclesiastical,  and,  ditHcult  as  is  the  history  of 
kingdoms,  some  combination  of  these  causes  can  always 
be  traced  in  them. 

The  effects  of  war  in  consolidating  a  loosely  formed  society 
are  described  by  travellers  who  have  seen  a  barbaric  tribe 
prepare  to  invade  an  enemy  or  defend  their  own  borders. 
Provisions  and  property  are  brought  into  the  common 
stock;  the  warriors 'submit  their  unruly  wills  to  a  leader,  and 
private  quarrels  are  sunk  in  a  larger  jjatriotism.  Distant 
clans  of  kinsfolk  come  together  against  the  common  enemy, 
and  neighbouring  tribes  with  no  such  natural  union  make 
an  alliance,  their  chiefs  serving  under  the  orders  of  a  leader 
chosen  by  them  all.  Here  are  seen  in  their  simplest  forms 
two  of  the  greatest  facts  in  history, — the  organised  army, 
where  the  several  forces  are  led  by  their  own  captains  under 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  433 

a  general,  and  the  confederation  of  tribes,  such  as  in  higher 
civiUsation  brings  on  political  federations  of  states  like  those 
in  Greece  and  Switzerland.  Out  of  such  alliances  of  tribes, 
when  they  last  beyond  the  campaign,  there  arise  nations, 
where  often,  as  in  old  Mexico,  the  head  of  the  strongest 
tribe  will  become  king.  Tribes  which  thus  unite  are  apt  to 
be  of  common  race,  speaking  kindred  dialects,  for  this  is 
everywhere  a  natural  bond  of  union  ;  and  when  they  have 
allied  themselves  into  one  people,  and  come  to  bear  a 
common  name,  such  as  Dorians  or  Hellenes,  they  willingly 
take  up  the  old  patriarchal  idea,  and  imagine  themselves 
more  closely  of  one  tiatlon  or  "birth  "  than  they  really  are, 
even  setting  up,  as  we  have  seen  (p.  3S9),  a  fictitious  as  a 
national  ancestor.  Events  take  a  different  course,  but  with  a 
somewhat  like  effect,  when  some  Kafir  leader  conquers  other 
tribes  around,  and,  setting  himself  above  them  all,  forces 
the  conquered  chiefs  to  bring  him  tribute  and  warriors  to 
fight  his  battles.  This  is  empire  on  a  small  scale  and  with 
rude  surroundings,  but  on  the  same  principles  as  that  of  a 
Caesar  or  a  Napoleon.  Thus  one  understands  why  in  the 
early  history  of  nations  it  is  so  inextricably  difficult  to  make 
out  how  far  any  people  have  grown  up  from  a  single  unmixed 
tribe,  or  have  been  built  up  by  alliance  and  conquest. 
What  shows  how  this  piecing  together  of  nations  must  have 
gone  on,  is  the  number  and  variety  of  their  gods.  While 
a  tribe  grows  of  itself,  the  names  and  worship  of  the  same 
tribe-gods  will  be  a  bond  of  union  in  all  the  clans,  and 
even  when  they  move  far  off  they  will  sometimes  go  on 
pilgrimage  to  the  shrines  of  their  old  home.  But  when 
peoples  amalgamate,  their  different  gods  are  kept  up,  as  when 
the  Peruvians  gave  places  to  the  gods  of  conquered  tribes 
under  their  own  great  deities.  Every  district  in  ancient 
Egypt  shows  by  its  varied  combination  of  gods  how  many 
29 


434  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap. 

little  states  and  local  religions  went  to  make  up  the  great 
despotism  and  hierarchy.  It  was  plainly  through  this  growth 
of  nations,  which  had  been  going  on  we  know  not  how  long 
before  history  began,  that  the  higher  civilization  of  mankind 
arose.  Scattered  famiUes  of  barbarians  in  a  land  where 
there  is  still  elbow  room  may  thrive  without  strong  govern- 
ment ;  but  when  men  live  in  populous  nations  and  crowded 
cities,  there  has  to  be  public  order.  That  this  political 
order  came  out  of  military  order  cannot  be  doubted.  War 
not  only  put  into  the  hands  of  the  sovereign  the  power  over 
a  whole  nation,  but  his  army  served  as  his  model  on  which 
to  organize  his  nation.  It  is  one  of  the  plainest  lessons 
of  history  that  through  military  discipline  mankind  were 
taught  to  submit  to  authority  and  act  in  masses  under  com- 
mand. Egypt  and  Babylon,  with  military  system  pervading 
not  only  the  standing  army,  but  the  orders  of  priests  and 
civilians,  developed  industry  and  wealth  highest  in  the 
ancient  world,  and  were  the  very  founders  of  literature  and 
science.  They  built  up  for  future  ages  the  framework  of 
government,  which  we  freer  moderns  of  our  own  will  submit 
ourselves  to  for  our  own  benefit.  A  constitutional  govern- 
ment, whether  called  republic  or  kingdom,  is  an  arrange- 
ment by  which  the  nation  governs  itself  by  means  of  the 
machinery  of  a  military  despotism. 

As  society  in  tribes  and  nations  became  a  more  complex 
system,  it  early  began  to  divide  into  classes  or  ranks. 
If  we  look  for  an  example  of  the  famous  first  principle 
of  the  United  States,  "that  all  men  are  created  equal," 
we  shall  in  fact  scarcely  find  such  equality  except 
among  savage  hunters  and  foresters,  and  by  no  means 
always  then.  The  greatest  of  all  divisions,  that  between 
freeman  and  slave,  appears  as  soon  as  the  barbaric  warrior 
spares  the  life  of  his  enemy  when  he  has  him  down,  and 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  435 

brings  him  home  to  drudge  for  him  and  till  the  soil.  How 
low  in  civilization  this  begins  appears  by  a  slave  caste  for- 
bidden to  bear  arms  forming  part  of  several  of  the  lower 
American  tribes.  How  thoroughly  slavery  was  recognized 
as  belonging  to  old-world  society  may  be  seen  by  the  way 
it  formed  part  of  the  Hebrew  patriarchal  system,  where  the 
man-servant  and  maid-servant  are  reckoned  as  a  man's 
wealth  just  before  his  ox  and  his  ass.  It  was  no  less  so  under 
Roman  law,  as  is  evident  from  the  very  word  fatniiy,  which 
at  first  meant  not  the  children  but  the  slaves  {famulus).  We 
live  in  days  when  the  last  remains  of  slavery  are  disappear- 
ing from  the  Jiigher  nations;  but  though  the  civilized  world 
has  outgrown  the  ancient  institution,  the  benefits  which 
early  society  gained  from  it  still  remain.  It  was  through 
slave  labour  that  agriculture  and  industry  increased,  that 
wealth  accumulated,  and  leisure  was  given  to  priests,  scribes, 
poets,  philosophers,  to  raise  the  level  of  men's  minds.  Out 
of  slavery  probably  arose  the  later  custom  of  hired  service,  the 
very  name  of  which,  as  derived  from  servus,  a  slave,  tells  the 
story  of  a  great  social  change.  The  master  at  first  let  out  his 
slaves  to  work  for  his  profit,  and  then  free  men  found  it  to 
their  advantage  to  work  for  their  own  profit,  so  that  there 
grew  up  the  great  wage-earning  class  whose  numbers  and 
influence  make  so  marked  a  difference  between  ancient  and 
modern  society.  In  all  communities,  except  the  smallest 
and  simplest,  the  freemen  divide  themselves  into  ranks. 
The  old  Northmen  divided  men  into  three  classes,  "  earls, 
churls,  and  thralls,"  which  roughly  match  what  we  should 
now  call  nobles,  freemen,  and  slaves.  Nobles  again  foil  into 
different  orders,  especially  those  who  can  claim  royal  blood 
forming  a  princely  order,  and  looking  down  on  the  chief- 
tains and  officers  of  the  army,  state,  and  church  who  fill 
the  lower  ranks  of  nobility. 


436  ANTHROPOLOGY,  [chap. 

As  nations  become  more  populous,  rich,  and  intelligent, 
the  machinery  of  government  has  to  be  improved.  The 
old  rough-and-ready  methods  no  longer  answer,  and  the 
division  of  labour  has  to  be  applied  to  politics.  Thus,  one 
of  the  chief's  early  duties  was  to  be  judge.  A  Kafir  chief- 
tain will  make  it  his  business  to  hear  suits  between  his 
people;  each  side  brings  him  a  gift  of  oxen.  At  higher 
levels  of  civilization  the  Eastern  monarch  sits  in  the  gate  of 
justice ;  and  it  was  so  among  the  ancient  Germans,  where 
the  king  sat  crowned  and  gave  judgment  in  his  own  court. 
It  is  still  the  king's  court,  but  the  actual  administration 
has  long  passed  into  the  hands  of  professional  judges.  So 
with  other  departments  of  government.  By  the  time  civili- 
zation had  come  to  the  level  of  ancient  Egypt  and  Babylon 
public  affairs  were  administered  by  officials  in  grades  like 
an  army,  who  collected  the  taxes,  attended  to  public  works, 
punished  offences,  and  did  justice  between  man  and  man. 
It  has  just  been  noticed  how  far  a  modern  nation  is  worked 
by  an  official  system  similar  to  that  of  the  ancients,  and 
how  we,  really  among  the  freest  of  peoples,  preserve  the 
forms  of  an  absolute  monarchy,  where  sovereign  power 
is  administered  through  servants  of  the  Crown  down  to 
the  exciseman  and  constable.  In  the  politics  of  savages 
and  barbarians,  the  outlines  of  the  civilized  system  of 
government  already  come  into  view.  We  have  seen  how 
among  such  rude  tribes  the  chief  or  king  appears,  who 
holds  his  place  in  some  form  through  higher  nations.  Even 
the  consul  or  president  of  a  republic  is  a  kind  of  temporary 
elective  king.  Of  not  less  antiquity  is  the  senate.  The 
old  men  squatting  round  the  council  fire  of  an  Indian  tribe 
on  the  prairies  have  in  their  way  a  greater  influence  than  a 
civilized  senate,  for  where  there  are  no  written  records  and 
books  the  old  men  are  the  very  sources  and  treasuries  of 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  437 

wisdom.  In  the  nations  of  the  world,  seats  at  such  councils 
are  given  to  wise  old  men,  priests  and  officers  of  high  rank, 
and  heads  of  great  families,  so  that  the  two  terms  senate 
and  house  of  lords  both  have  their  proper  meaning,  and  the 
two  claims  of  wisdom  and  rank  are  more  or  less  com- 
bined. With  the  very  beginning  of  political  life  appears 
also  the  popular  assembly.  In  small  tribes  the  whole  com- 
munity, or  at  least  the  freemen,  come  together.  It  may 
be  only  a  forest  tribe  in  Brazil  called  together  by  the 
chief  to  decide  some  question  of  an  expedition  to  net 
wildfowl  or  attack  a  neighbouring  tribe,  yet  solemn  form 
will  be  observed.  There  is  silence  for  the  orators,  and  if 
the  assembly  approve  they  will  at  last  cry  "  good  !  "  or  "  be 
it  so ! "  More  civilized  forms  of  the  assembly  of  the 
people  may  be  studied  in  Freeman's  comparison  of  the 
Achaian  ao^ora  described  in  the  second  book  of  the 
Iliad,  with  the  "  great  meeting  "  held  outside  London  in 
Edward  the  Confessor's  time.  Even  in  our  own  day  the 
great  meeting  of  the  people  has  not  disappeared  from 
Europe.  The  wor.derful  sight  is  still  to  be  seen  of  the 
people  of  a  Swiss  canton  gathered  together  in  a  wide 
meadow  or  market-place  to  vote  Yes  or  No  on  the  great 
questions  which  their  supreme  authority  decides.  AVith 
the  growth  of  nations  the  folk-moot  or  assembly  of  the 
whole  people,  never  a  good  deliberative  body,  soon  becomes 
unmanageable  by  mere  numbers  ;  but  there  is  a  way  by 
which  its  authority  may  be  kept  in  a  less  unwieldy  form 
when  the  people,  no  longer  able  to  go  themselves,  send 
chosen  representatives  to  act  for  them.  This  seems  a  simple 
device  enough,  and  indeed  the  first  savage  tribe  that  ever 
sent  a  discreet  orator  to  negotiate  peace  or  war  on  its 
behalf  had  seized  the  idea  of  a  political  representative. 
But  in  fact  it  is    one  of  the  most    remarkable    points   in 


438  ANTHROPOLOGY  [chap. 

political  history,  how  the  principle  of  popular  representation 
has  been  worked  out  in  England  from  the  time  of  Simon  de 
Montfort's  famous  parliament  in  the  13th  century.  It  is 
for  historians  to  discuss  how  the  knights  and  burgesses 
who  came  up  to  grant  the  king's  supplies  passed  into  the 
lower  house  of  parliament  as  it  is  now ;  what  has  to  be 
noticed  here  is  the  change  which,  while  the  huge  pro- 
miscuous assembly  of  the  people  shrank  into  an  aristocratic 
upper  house,  gave  us  a  new  elective  popular  body,  the 
house  of  commons.  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  no 
event  in  English  history  has  had  so  great  an  effect  in 
shaping  the  course  of  modern  civilization.  On  the  whole, 
looking  at  what  government  is  coming  to  among  the  most 
enlightened  nations,  it  will  be  seen  that  it  attains  its  ends, 
not  so  much  by  casting  off  the  methods  of  our  remote  bar- 
baric ancestors,  as  by  improving  and  regulating  them.  The 
administration  of  the  state  under  the  system  of  sovereign 
authority,  the  control  of  the  senate,  and  the  source  of 
political  power  in  the  will  of  the  nation  itself,  are  made  to 
work  together  and  restrain  one  another  so  as  fairly  to  keep 
the  benefits  and  neutralize  the  excesses  of  all,  while  the  con- 
stitution has  within  it  the  power  of  continual  reform,  so  that 
the  machine  of  government  may  be  ever  shaping  itself  into 
more  perfect  fitness  to  its  work. 

Here  this  sketch  of  Anthropology  may  close.  The  ex- 
amination of  man's  age  on  the  earth,  his  bodily  structure 
and  varieties  of  race  and  language,  has  led  us  on  to  enquire 
into  his  intellectual  and  social  history.  In  his  many-sided 
life  there  may  be  clearly  traced  a  development,  which,  not- 
withstanding long  periods  of  stoppage  and  frequent  falling 
back,  has  on  the  whole  adapted  modern  civilized  man  for  a 
far  higher  and  happier  career  than  his  ruder  ancestors. 
In  this  development,  the  preceding  chapters  have  shown  a 


XVI.]  SOCIETY.  439 

difference  between  low  and  high  nations,  which  it  only 
remains  to  put  before  the  reader  as  a  practical  moral  to  the 
tale  of  civilization.  It  is  true  that  both  among  savage  and 
civilized  peoples  progress  in  culture  takes  place,  but  not 
under  the  same  condidons.  The  savage  by  no  means  goes 
through  life  with  the  intention  of  gathering  more  knowledge 
and  framing  better  laws  than  his  fathers.  On  the  contrary, 
his  tendency  is  to  consider  his  ancestors  as  having  handed 
down  to  him  the  perfection  of  wisdom,  v/hich  it  would  be 
impiety  to  make  the  least  alteration  in.  Hence  among 
the  lower  races  there  is  obstinate  resistance  to  the  most 
desirable  reforms,  and  progress  can  only  force  its  way 
with  a  slowness  and  difficulty  which  we  of  this  century  can 
hardly  imagine.  Looking  at  the  condition  of  the  rude 
man,  it  may  be  seen  that  his  aversion  to  change  was  not 
always  unreasonable,  and  indeed  may  often  have  arisen 
from  a  true  instinct.  With  his  ignorance  of  any  life  but 
his  own,  he  would  be  rash  to  break  loose  from  the  old  tried 
machinery  of  society,  to  plunge  into  revolutionary  change, 
which  might  destroy  the  present  good  without  putting  better 
in  its  place.  Had  the  experience  of  ancient  men  been 
larger,  they  would  have  seen  their  way  to  faster  steps  in 
culture.  But  we  civilized  moderns  have  just  that  wider 
knowledge  which  the  rude  ancients  wanted.  Acquainted 
with  events  and  their  consequences  far  and  wide  over  the 
world,  we  are  able  to  direct  our  own  course  with  more  con- 
fidence toward  improvement.  In  a  word,  mankind  is  pass- 
ing from  the  age  of  unconscious  to  that  of  conscious  pro- 
gress. Readers  who  have  come  thus  far  need  not  be  told 
in  many  words  of  what  the  facts  must  have  already  brought 
to  their  minds  —  that  the  study  of  man  and  civilization 
is  not  only  a  matter  of  scientific  interest,  but  at  once 
passes  into  the  practical  business   of  life.     We  have  in  it 


440  ANTHROPOLOGY.  [chap.  xvi. 

the  means  of  understanding  our  own  lives  and  our  place  in 
the  world,  vaguely  and  imperfectly  it  is  true,  but  at  any  rate 
more  clearly  than  any  former  generation.  The  knowledge 
of  man's  course  of  life,  from  the  remote  past  to  the  present, 
will  not  only  help  us  to  forecast  the  future,  but  may 
guide  us  in  our  duty  of  leaving  the  world  better  than  we 
found  it. 


SELECTED  BOOKS,  &c. 


Physical  and  Descriptive  Anthropology  : — 
Waitz,  Anthropologic  der  Naturvolker. 
Topinard,  Anthropology. 
Darwin,  Descent  of  Man. 
Huxley,  Man's  Place  in  Nature  ;  Geographical  Distribution  of 

Mankind  {}n  /oin-nal  of  Ethnological  Hocid}', Vol.  II.  1870). 
Vogt,  Lectures  on  Man. 
Prichard,  Natural  History  of  Man, 
Wood,  Natural  History  :  Man. 
Peschel,  Races  of  Man. 
Quatrefages,  Human  Species. 
Prof.    Flower's    Hunterian    Lectures    on     "The    Comparative 

Anatomy  of  Man."     Nature,   July  1879  (Vol.    XX.,    Nos. 

505,  506,  507),  and  May  and  June  1880,  (Vol.  XXII.,  Nos. 

551.  552,  553)- 
Broca,  Instructions   Craniologiques,  Anthropological  Notes  and 

Queries  for  Travellers,  &c.  (British  Association). 
Journal  of  the  Anthropological  Institute  (London). 
Revue  d'Anthropolojjie  (Paris). 
Zeitschrift  fiir  Ethnologic  (Berlin). 
Accounts  of  races  by  travellers  and  missionaries,  such  as  Catlin, 

North   American   Indians  ;    Ellis,   Polynesian  Researches  ; 

Wallace,  Travels  on  the  Amazon,  and  Malay  Archipelago  ; 

Burton,    Lake   Regions   of    Central  Africa ;    J.  L.  Wilson, 

Western  Africa  ;  Grey,  Travels  in  Australia;  etc.,  etc. 

Geology  and  Arch.ilology  of  Man  : — 
Lubbock,  Prehistor.c  Times. 
Lyell,  Antiquity  of  Man. 

Dawkins,  Cave-hunting  ;  Early  Man  in  Britain. 
Evans,  Ancient  Stone  Implements  of  Great  Britain. 
Fergusson,  Rude  vStone  Monuments. 
Keller  and  Lee,  Lake  Dwellings  of  Switzerland. 
Nilsson,  Primitive  Inhabitants  of  Scandinavia. 
Wilson,  Prehistoric  Man. 


442  SELECTED  BOOKS,  ETC. 

Philology  : — 

Max  Miiller,  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language. 

Sayce,  Comparative  Pliilology ;   Introduction   to  the  Science  of 

Language. 
Whitney,  Language  and  the  Study  of  Language. 
Hovelacque  and  Vinson,  Tlie  Science  of  Language. 
Pictet,  Origmes  Indo-Europeenne^. 
Steinthal,     Charakteristik    der    haupts'dchlichsten    Typen    des 

Sprachbaues. 

Civilisation  : — 

Maine,  Ancient  Law. 

Lubbock,  Origin  of  Civilisation. 

Bagehot,  Pliysics  and  Politics. 

Freeman,  Comparative  Politics  ;  Historical  Essays. 

Draper,  Intellectual  Development  of  Europe. 

McLennan,  Studies  in  Ancient  History. 

Morgan,  Ancient  Society. 

Spencer,  Principles  of  Sociology. 

Klemm,  AUgemeine  Culturgeschiclite  ;    Culturwissenchaft. 

Tylor,  Early  History  of  Mankind ;  Primitive  Culture. 


INDEX. 


Abacus,  314 

Abstract  ideas,  52,  119,  135 

words,  135 
Acclimatisation,  74 
Administration,  434 
/Esop,  399 
Affixes,  142 
Africans,  2,  57,  65,  87 

languages,  164 
Aged,  409 

Agglutinating  languages,  161 
Agriculture,  214 
Ainos,  73 
Alb.nos,  68 
Alchemy,  328 
Alcoholic  liquors,  268 
Algebra,  322 
AlUteration,  289 
Alphabet,  175 
Altar,  367 
Amentum,  194 
Americans,  63,  102,  16S 

languages,  165 
Analogy,  338 
Analytic  languages,  139 
Anatomy,  330 

Ancestor-worship,  352,  358,  369 
Animals,  cries  of,  122 

domesticated,  219 

quaternary,  30 

succession  of,  37 
Animism,  371 

Antiquity  of  Man,  i,  25,  33,  40,  113,  166 
Apes  and  ^tan,  38,  48,  260 
Arabs,  109 

language,  11,  159 
Arch,  235 

Architecture.  21,  232 
Aristocracy,  225,  435 
Arithmetic,  17,  314 
Armour,  222 
Army,  226,  434 


Arrow,  26,  195,  212 

poisoned,  221 
Artillery,  227 
Aryans,  10,  log,  156,  381 

languages,  10,  156 
Assyrians,  22,  160,  313,  384 

language,  160 
Astrology,  339 
Astronomy,  21,  332 
Australians,  57,  91 
Auxiliary  words,  137 
Avesta,  381 

B 

Babylonians,  22,  163,  172 

language,  163 
Baking,  266 
Ball,  307 

Eantu  languages,  149,  164 
Barbaric  stage,  24,  401 
Bark-clothing,  244 
Barometer,  325 
Barter,  281 
Basuto,  165 
Beast-fables,  339 
Beer,  268 
Berbers,  95 

language,  160 
Biblical  history,  385 
Bill-hook,  190 
Bills  of  exchange,  284 
Black  races,  2,  5,  80,  87 
Blood-brotherhood,  423 
Blood-vengeance,  414 
Blow-tube,  196 
Blue  Beard,  398 
Boat,  252 

Body-measures,  17,  316 
Boil.ng,  266 
Boomerang,  193 
Borer,  192 
Botany,  329 
Bow,  16,  195,  212 
Brachykephal.c,  6i 


444 


INDEX. 


Bran,  45,  60 

Brand-tillage,   218 

Bread,  266 

Br'iclc,  234 

Broiling,  265 

Bronze,  21,  278 

Brjnze  Age,  25,  279 

Brown  races,  2,  5,  91 

Buddha,  399 

Bur,al,  347 

Burning-lens  and  mirror,  263 

Bushmen,  57,  89.  165 

C 

Cafusjs,  82 

Candle,  272 

Cannibalism,  224,  410 

Canoe,  252 

Cardinal  points,  21,  334 

Canbs,  78 

Caste,  69 

Cattle,  2ig 

Cause,  spirit,  356 

Cave-men,  30,  261; 

Caves,  229 

Celt,  26,  187 

Cereals,  215 

Ceremonies,  365,  403,  423 

Chaldeans,  22,  384 

Chemistry,  328 

Chess,  308 

Chiefs,  428 

Ch.lcirea's  language,  128 

Chimney,  264 

Chinese,  2,  57,  63,   162,  170 
language,  162 

Civilisation,  13,  18,  24,  75,  180,  406 

Civilised  stage,  24,  401 

Clicks,  165 

Clothing,  15,  236 

Club,  184 

Coffee,  270 

C  Vin,  283 

Colour,  66,  81,  85_ 

Comedy,  209 

Commerce,  285 

Common  land,  419 

Compass,  28,  341 

Concord,  147 

Consciousness,  53 

Cmstitution  of  races,  73 

C.nstitulionalism,  43S 

Cookery,  264 

Copper,  277 

Corn,  215 

Counting,  18,  310 

Creator,  358 

Cromlech,  348 

Cross-b'>w,  16,  196 

Crossed  races,  6,  80 
Cultivation,  215 
Cuneiform  writing,  172,  3* 
Cu.itom,  409 


Dagger,  190 
Dancing.  224,  296 
Dark-whites,  2,  56,  68,  107 
Dead,  worship  of,  352 
Deaf-and-dumb  signs,  ii_S 
Death,  343 

Decimal  counting,  311 
Decline  of  culture,  19 
Deformation  of  skull,  &c.,  240 
Degeneration,  19,  86 
Demoniacal  possession,  353 
Demons,  352 
Demon-worship,  353 
Descent,  female  and  male,  402 
Despotism,  431 
Digging-stick,  216 
Diseases.  73,  353 
Distilling,  269,  328 
Dog,  209 

D  jhchoicephalic,  2,  61 
Dolmen,  348 

Domesticated  animals,  219 
Drama,  298 
Dravidians,  94 

languages,  164 
Drawing,  31,  300 
Dreams,  343 
Drift,  animals  of.  30 

implements  of,  28,  187 
Drift-period,  28 
Drill,  202 
Drum,  293 
Dryads,  357 
Dualism,  363 
Dutch,  9 
Dwellings,  229 


Ear-  and  nose-ornaments,  242 
Earth-god,  359 
Echo,  357  . 

Education,  capacity  for,  74 
Egyptians,  3,  21.  69,  79,  95,  173- 

language,  160 
Electricity,  327 
Elephants,  fossil,  30.  388 
Emotional  sound,  120,  124 
Empire,  433 
English,  133 
Eponymic  myths,  3S9 
Esquimaux,  105,  265 
Ethiopians,  69 
Etymology,  126.  134 
Europeans,  60,  109 
Evolution,  36,  331 
Exogamy,  402 
Exorcism,  354 
Eyes,  2,  6i,  70 


INDEX. 


445 


Facial  angle,  62 

Fair-whites,  2,  56,  68,  107 

Families  of  language,  9,  155 

Family,  402,  426 

Fates,  395 

Father,  power  of,  427 

Features,  44,  63 

Federation,  433 

Female  succession,  429 

Feudalism,  420 

Fiction,  379 

Fields,  218,  420 

Figures,  312 

Fijians,  90 

Finger-  and  toe-counting,  18,  310 

Finger-nails   240 

Finns,  98 

Fire,  260 

Firearms,  17,  197,  227 

Fire-drill,  16,  261 

Fire-god,  361 

First  man,  35S 

Fish-hook,  213 

Fishing,  212 

Flakes,  stone,  26,  185 

Flint-and-steel,  2G1 

Food,  206,  204 

Forests,  succession  of,   27 

Fortification,  228 

Fossil  bones,'  388 

Fowling,  208 

Freemen,  223,  434 

Fruits,  216 

Future  life,  344,  349 


Game  law,  419 
Games,  305 
Garments,  249 
Gas,  273 
Gender,  149 
Genius,  356 
Geography,  335 
Geology,  29,  32,  336 
Geometry,  17,  318 
Germans,  no 

language,  9 
Gesture-language,  114,  124,  310 
Ghosts,  544,  349 
Giants.  388 
Glacial  period,  30 
Glass,  276 
Gods,  358 
Gogmagog,  390 
Government,  15,  428,  437 
Grain,  215 

Grammar,  119,  146,  156 
Grammatical  words,  137 
Gravitation,  325 
Greeks,  158 


Grimm's  law,  155 
Guardian  spirits,  356 
Gypsies,  112 

H 

Hair,  2,  44,  71,  82 
Hair-dressing,  238 
Hammer,  185 
Hand  and  foot,  42 

counting  en,  18,  310 
Harmony,  293 
Harp,  204 
Harpoon,  214 
Hatchet,  188 
Hawking,  2c g 
Heat,  327 
Heaven-god,  359 
Hebrew,  11,  159 
Herodotus,  385 
Hieroglyphics,  173 
Hindus,  in,  157 
Historic  period,  5,  22,  375 
Hoe,  216 

Horatii  and  Curiatii,  397 
Hospitality,  409 
Hottentots,  89,  165 

language,  165 
House,  231 

Houses  of  Lords  and  Commons,  437 
Hungarians,  98 

language,  162 
Hunting,  207,  220 
Hut,  230 


I 

Ideas,  52,  iig,  13s 
Idols,  366 
Imitative  signs,  116 

sounds,  124 

words,  121 
Implements,  183 
Inde-x,  Kephalic,  61 
India,  hill-tribes,  2,  94 

laterite,  31 

races,  in,  164 
Individuals,  421,  428 
Infanticide,  427 
Inflecting  languages,  161 
Inheritance,  421 
Inspiration,  366 
Instinct,  51 
Interjections,  121,  124 
Iritonati,n,  162,  291 
Iron,  21,  277 
Iron  Age,  25,  279 
Italians,  158 


Javelin,  193 

Jews,  4.  109,  159,  385 

Justice,  436 


446 


INDEX. 


K 

Keltic  peoples,  28,  71,  no,  153 

languages,  158 
Kephalic  index,  61 
Killing,  412 

eld  and  infirm,  410 
King,  430,  436 
Knife,  189 

Labret,  242 

Lamp,  272 

Lancet,  192        ' 

Land,  common,  219,  419 

Land-law,  218,  419 

Language,  7,  53,  129,  152,  337 

analytic  and  synthet.c,  139 

and  race,  i56 

children's,  128 

connexion  of,  154 

development  of,  130 

families  of,  9,  155 

natural,  122 

origin  of,  130,  165 
Lapps,  98 
Lathe,  203 
Latin,  7,  156 
Law,  405,  412,  423 
Lazo,  212 
Leather,  245 
Lens,  263 
Libyans,  69 
Life,  future,  344,  349 
Light,  326 
Lion,  cave,  30 
Liquors,  268 
Logic,  336 
Ljng-bow.  16,  195 
Loom,  248 
Lucifer-matches,  263 

M 

Machines,  198 
Magic,  338 
Maue,  215 
Malayo-Polynesians,  102 

language,  163 
Malays,  99 
Mammoth,  30 
Man,  38,  45 

antiquity  of,  i,  25,  33,  40.  113,  166 

first,  358 

primitive,  33.  40,  113 

unity  of,  6,  85 

races  of,  I,  56,  75,  85,  113 
Manes,  352,  358 
Manslaughter,  41a 
Ma  ris,  102,  374 
Mariner's  compass,  328,  341 
Marriage,  402 
Masonry,  21,  233 
Mathematics,  17,  321 
Mats,  246 


Maui,  393 
Measures,  17,  316 
Mechanics,  323 
Medicine,  15,  330 
Melanesians,  89 
Melanochroi,  107 
Melody,  293 
Memory,  49 
Menhir,  348 
Mensuration,  317 
Mesokephalic,  61 
Metal  Age,  25,  189 
Metals,  20,  189,  277 
Metaphor,  126,  290 
Metre,  288 
Mexicans,  105,  169 

Micrones.ans,  102 

Mill,  200,  204 

Mind,  47 

Mirror,  263,  326 

Missiles,  193 

Mixed  races,  8c,  85 

Monarchy,  431 

Money,  282 

Mongolians,  5,  63.  96 
languages,  162 

Monosyllabic  languages,  162 

Monotheism,  364 

Moon-god,  361 

Moors,  III 

Morals,  368,  405 

Mourning,  237 

Mulattos,  80 

Music,  291 

Mutilations,  240 

Myth,  387 

N 
Nation.  433 
Natural  language,  122 
Nature-myths,  391 
Nature-spirits,  350,   391 
Need-fire,  262 
Needle,  249 
Negritos,  89 

Negro-European  dialects,  153 
Negros,  2,  57,  65,  87 
Neolithic  implements,  26,  187 
Nets,  212 
Nightmare,  357 
Nobles,  435 
Nomades,  219 
Norns,  395 
Nose,  63 
Nubians,  94 
Numerals,  18,  310 
Nymphs,  357 


Oar,  256 
Oath,  362,  425 
Oblique  eyes,  2,  63 
Oracle-priests,  366 


INDEX. 


447 


Ordeal,  423 

Origin  of  language,  130,  165 

of  man,  85 
Ornaments,  241 
Orthognathous,  62 
Outrigger,  255 


Paddle,  256 

Painting,  301 

body,  237 
Palaeolithic  implements,  26,  186 
Pantheism,  364 
Pantomime,  114.  298 
Paper-money,  284 
Papuas,  72,  90 
Parts  of  speech,  138 
Pasturage,  219 
Patagonians,  57 
Paternal  power,  427 
Patriarchal  system,  429 
Pendulum.  324 
Persians,  63,  157,  381 
Personal  pn  perty,  420 
Personification.  395 
Peruvians,  59,  105 
Phoenicians,  175 

language,  59 
Physics,  323 
Picture-writing,  168 
Pipe,  294 
Plaiting,  246 
Plants,  214 
Plough,  217 
Poetry,  287,  375 
Poisi  n.  arrow-,  221 

fish.  213 
Polynesians,  ic2.  374 

language,  163 
Polytheism,  362 
Popular  assembly,  437 
Porcelain,  276 

Possession,  demoniacal,  15,  353 
Potato,  215 
Pottery,  274 

wheel,  275 
Prse-historic  period,  5,  374 
Prayer,  360,  364 
Primogeniture,  422 
Printing.  180 
Private  war,  419 
Prognathous,  62 
Prometheus,  396 
Pronouns,  138 
Property,  419 
Proportions  cf  body,  58 
Prose,  28  7 
Public  opinion,  408 
Pullev,  198 
Punishment,  414 
Pyramids,  21,  233,  334 
Pyrites,  263 


Quadroons,  80 
Quaternary  period,  29 
Quinary  numeration,  311 

R 

Races  and  languages,  153,  165 

characters  of,  i.  56,  75,  80,  113 

degeneration  of.  86 

mixture  or  crossing  of,  80,  85 

permanence  of,  80 

variation  of,  80,  85 
Raft,  255 
Rain-god,  359 
Rank,  434 
Real  words,  137 
Reason,  50,  336 
Red  Ridinghood,  394 
Reduplication,  128 
Religion,  342,  368,  407,  432 
Rent,  420 

Representation,  political,  437 
Retaliation,  417 
Retribution,  future,  368 
Rhyme,  289 
Right  of  life,  427 
River-god,  361 
Romance  languages,  7 
Romulus  and  Remus,  380 
Roots,  144 

Rude  stone  monuments,  348 
Rudimentary  organs,  36 


Sacrifice,  346,  360,  365 
Sail,  256 
Samoyeds,  60 
Sanskrit,  10,  156 
Savage  stage,  24,  32,  401 
Saw,  192 

Scandinavians,  in,  158 
Screw,  192,  203 
Sculpture,  300 
Sea-god,  360 
Semitic  nations,  4,  69,  80 

languages,  11,  159 
Senate,  436 
Sentences,  139 
Sewing,  249 
Shield,  222 
Ship,  257 
Siamese,  97,  162 
Sign-language,  114 
Skin,  2,  66,  81 
Skull,  2,  60 

def-rmation,  240 
Sky-god,  359 
Slavery,  225,  421,  434 
Sling,  194 

Smell  cf  races,  2,  70 
Society,  401 


448 


IxXDEX. 


Song,  224,  287,  375 

Soul,  343,  350,  369 

Sound,  3^6 

South-East  Asian  languages,  162 

Spade,  216 

Spear,  1S6,  194,  213 

Spear-thrcwers,  19  j 

Species,  descent  of,  36,  331 

Spelling,  178 

Spinn.ng,  246 

Spirit,  34^,  349,  356,  391 

Stature,  56,  76 

Steam-power,  204,  259,  271 

Steel,  278 

Stone  Age,  25,  28,  187,  279 

implements,  26,  187 

monuments,  348 
Stove,  264 
String,  246 
Succession,  429.  432 
Sun-god,  360,  368 
Sun-myth,  394,  397 
Supreme  deiij^,  364 
Survivals,  i  j 
Sword,  190 

Symbolic  sound.  126,  143 
Syntax,  119,  139,  146 
Synthetic  languages,  141 
Syrians,  69,  So 


Tactics,  226 
Tanning.  245 
Tasmanians,  91 
Tatars,  9S 

language.  161 
Tatooing,  237 
Tea,  270 

Temperament  of  races,  74 
Temple,  348,  367 
Tent,  231 
Teutons,  158 
Theatre,  298 
Theft.  413 

Thunderbolt,  26,  359 
Thunder-god,  359 
Tools,  183,  192 
Torch,  272 
Totem,  403 
Trade.  285 
Tradition,  373 
Tragedy,  299 
Trance.  343 

Transmigration  of  soul,  350,  369 
Trapping,  211 


Tree-spirits,  357 
Tribe-land.  419 
Trumpet,  293 
Turanian  languages,  161 
Typical  men,  76 


Vampire,  356 

Variation  of  races,  84 

Veda,  156,  381 

Veddas.  164 

Vengeance,  414 

Verse,  287 

Vertebrates,  35,  47 

Vessels,  274 

Vigesimal  counting,  311 

Village  community,  219,  420 

Vishnu,  367,  397 

Visions,  343 


W 

Wages,  435 

War,  221.  41S,  432 

War-ciiief,  430 

Water- wheel,  204 

Weapons,  184,  221 

Weaving.  247 

Werewolf,  356 

Wergild,  416 

Wheel-carriage,  198 

White  race,  2,  5.  57,  69,  109,  113 

Widow,  346,  404 

Wife-capture.  225,  305,  403 

Wife-purchase,  404 

Wilhelm  Tell,  397 

Wind-g.:d,  361 

Windmill.  204 

Wine,  26S 

Words,  borrowed,  155 

combination,  143 

formation,  126,  140 
Worship,  364 
Writing,  169 


Xanthochroic,  107 


Yellow  race,  2,  5,  69,  96 


Z 


Zoology,  329 


Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


3 

3     E-«| 


8 

10/8 


.■iA   -L.  V 


JAN  2  9 199^ 

Biomedica 

AC  NOVO  3  1997 

R  E  C  E  ! 


1  WKP'^P  n  ^  IQOIf 


L  006  172  039  7 


ini 


^r-^  ^S^r/ -""^'^  * 


r><-4 


